ESP8266

The ESP8266 is a WiFi-enabled SOC (system on chip) which can run open-source firmware, such as nodeMCU (an eLua interpreter), Ai-Thinker (a simple TCP/IP stack to act as a serial-to-TCP WiFi adapter), a bootloader to use with the ArduinoIDE or any other program written with the SDK (software development kit).

The ESP8266 chip can be readily purchased, presoldered on a small PCB module with different pins broken out for easy access.

Modules

E-12

This module is FCC-licensed and has more pins of the EAP8266 broken out. The spacind if the pins is 'not the 0.1 inch usual DDIP/breadboard spacing.

USB-Enabled boards

Amica

The NodeMCU Amica board has the E-12 module and a micro USB port on board.