What is Reddit's opinion of Makerfocus 4pcs ESP8266 Esp-01 Serial Wireless Wifi Transceiver Module Compatible with Arduino?

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The ESP8266 have several advantages, the two biggest are cost and power consumption.

You can buy 4 ESP8266 for $12.99 on amazon and have them delivered for free the next day. These things have on board flash, so you do not need to buy an SD card. Also, I believe these things have an ultra low power sleep mode, I know that the ESP32's do have this feature. I haven't seen the data, but I bet these things will run for a year on a couple of standard D cells. To do this you can program them to wake up, make the measurement, turn on wifi, send the data, then go back to deep sleep for a set amount of time before waking up again. This removes the need to have them near an A/C power plug. The most expensive thing you need to buy is a box, which you will need to a Pi based solution as well.

Compare this to the Pi W, it costs $10, but unless you close to a store that has them, you have to pay about $5 for shipping, several more bucks for an SD card, and several more bucks for a USB charger to power it. By the time you are done, you have spent around $20 to $25 per station before you buy the box to put them in. Then you have to place the unit within reach of a A/C power plug.

For the floor plan, My Raspi version 3 is running apache web server serving the UI. On the same Pi3 that is running Apache, I have the Raspberry Pi 7 inch touch screen the unit, I run Chromium in kiosk mode for presentation. My display is nothing more than a web page with PHP running on the backend, and javascript running inside Chromium. It works like a charm plus I can display it on any computer, smart phone, or any tablet in my home. With a properly configured firewall in my gateway, I can also view it when I am away from my home.

Maybe the ESP-01 name applies to multiple things. I have dozens of ESP-01 boards like these ready to use with 8 header pins. The smallest boards I've see nwit hthe ESP-12 module are the D1 Mini boards, which are about twice the size of the ESP-01.

You can try using the NRF24l01 module or a wifi module with the Arduino.

If you're using the NRF2l01, then you'll need a pair. One for the Arduino and the other for the Raspberry Pi.

I think you should use a Wifi Module with the Arduino and use the MQTT protocol to transfer data to the Raspberry Pi.

Does this project work with the following part? I’m not an expert on 8266 but there seems to be the big the op used and the one in the link

MakerFocus 4pcs ESP8266 ESP-01 Serial Wireless WiFi Transceiver Receiver Module 1MB SPI Flash DC3.0-3.6V Internet of Things WiFi Module Board Compatible with Arduino https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EA3UJJ4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_49gpFbMJ47E3A

The actual brains is the esp01 which is the same chip as the esp8266 but smaller

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EA3UJJ4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm_t1_F0R7FbQQBJPAB?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

You will need something like this to program it

ESP-01S Programmer USB to ESP8266 Wireless WiFi Adapter Module Wi-Fi CH340G 4.5-5.5V https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07V54DWXH/

And then I used the board I originally linked to connect to a string of LED

Help! Am I overcomplicating my solution?

So I run a light show on the front of my house for Halloween and Christmas (and other random times through the year). I have these path lights that I custom made using these types of connectors combined with some T adapters and some 3 core outdoor cable. Long story short, lots of work, solder, heat shrink, and curse words to make smart path lights that only have one cable that handles both data in and out. Well with all the soldered connections and it having to go a decent distance across my front lawn, that cable doesn't seem to be holding up anymore after about 2 years.

So, rather than doing the same thing again, I was thinking about just running traditional 12v landscape wire, and having an esp8266 (just the bare-boned module, the one with 8 pins, like this one) with a single pixel light (or two) inside each path light. It's very doable, I already have enough modules for each light that will convert 12v to 3.3v for the esp8266. Currently I just have a pixel controller driving them all in line, but in theory I could have them all just wireless. One way or another the lights have to be connected to the internet. Question is, am I way overcomplicating this? Does anyone have any better suggestions? I have 12 lights, so that would be 12 esp8266 devices connected to my wifi on top of all my other smart home stuff. They are also outside 24/7/365, and on for roughly 8 hours per evening.