ESP8266: A $5 microcontroller with wi-fi that runs Python
By the way, I have to warn people who are thinking about trying this chip (as I have done in other comments):The bare chip won't be very useful to you, unless you want to design your own PCB. Instead, I would recommend a breakout board. There are two major types:Something like the WeMos D1 Mini (http://www.aliexpress.com/item/D1-mini-Mini-NodeMcu-4M-bytes...) or NodeMCU (http://www.ebay.com/itm/NodeMCU-LUA-WIFI-Internet-Developmen...), which are very full-featured and include onboard USB programmers and fancy things like that, but are a bit bulky. The NodeMCU I linked is solid, the WeMos is also great as it's much smaller and only includes the useful pins.The alternative is a bare breakout board, which is the minimum that you need to make the ESP breadboard-friendly and so you don't have to solder a bunch of resistors on the chip. This is best when you want to work at a lower level, and have the minimum hardware required for the ESP to work on the board, with everything else going in your circuit.There are breakout boards on ebay like this one (http://www.ebay.com/itm/1Set-ESP8266-WiFi-Module-Breakout-Bo...). STAY AWAY FROM THESE. They don't include all the necessary components, so the ESP won't work reliably without extra pullups, and they take up the entire breadboard space.Because I was burnt by these, I designed my own and made it open-source:https://github.com/skorokithakis/tiny-ESP8266-breakoutIt's easier to work with, leaves room on the breadboard and includes all necessary resistors/caps and an optional voltage regulator. It's also very small. There's a dirtypcbs link on the github repo so you can just order 40 of these for $14 if you like, or you can just download the KiCad schematics (KiCad is awesome and open-source) and get it fabricated at your favorite PCB house.Back to our regularly scheduled programming. Feel free to copy/paste this comment whenever there's an ESP discussion, I think it's a good primer for people who don't have ESP experience.