My goal is to have remote control of a device on a WLAN.  This device has software that enables me to configure this wireless network (IP, mask, gateway, dns).  I can successfully connect this device, and my computer to a common network.  Since both machines share the same network, I made the assumption that I would be able to open up a socket between them.  Knowing the IP and port of the device that I am attempting to control remotely I used the following code, only to receive a timeout:
import socket
s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
s.connect(('192.168.xxx.xxx', XXXX))
(I am using python 2.7 on mac OS 10.11.6)
The network that I am connected to is on a different subnet that the IP that I assigned to my device.  I also tried this having an IP on the same subnet as my network.  There could be a number of things keeping me from opening a socket.  That's not really what I'm after.  The heart of my question is whether or not I can use python's 'socket' module to connect to a device wirelessly.
Yes you can.
So you get a timeout when you try to connect to a wireless device. There are several steps you can take in order to troubleshoot this.
Make sure your device has a program running that is listening to the port you want to connect to. Identify if the device can answer ICMP packets in general and can be pinged in particular. Try to ping the device. If ping succeeds, it means that basic connectivity is established and the problem is somewhere higher in the OSI stack. 
- I can ping the device - great, it means that the problem is somewhere in TCP or Application Layer of the TCP/IP stack. Make sure the computer, the device, and intermediate networking equipment allow for TCP connections to the particular host and port. Then proceed to your application and the device software. Add some code to the question, post the stack trace you get or ask another one on SO.
- I can't ping the device - great. There's no connectivity between the devices and you're to identify the reason. 
I) Draw a network diagram. How many intermediate network devices are placed in between the computer and the device? What are they, routers, switches? (Just in case, home grade wifi modem is a router.) Get an idea of how IP datagrams should travel across the net.
II) You said that the device can be used to configure an IP network. At least for troubleshooting purposes I would ignore this option and rely on a static IP or your router's DHCP server. Using an existing DHCP will ensure there's no IP misconfigurations.
III) Review routing tables of all the devices you have. Do they have an appropriate default gateway? Does a router knows how to pass the packets to the device. You're probably in trouble if the computer and the device are in the same subnet but attached to different network interfaces. Split the network in two subnets if needed and set up static routes between them on the router.
You can also use wireshark to see if data you send leaves the computer or is dropped right there by some nasty firewall.
There's a lot of caveats in getting a LAN working. You may want to ask questions on networking.stackexchange if these simple steps doesn't help you or if you have major troubles following them. Or just leave a comment here, I'd be happy to help.
can I use python's 'socket' module to connect to a wireless ethernet host?