[zapt02]

For someone wanting to tinker but not being great at electronics project, what is the easiest way to: - Play with the chip (testing interfaces, deploying code etc) - "Deploy" it (ie. connect it to ground power, via 230v-USB connector or similar?

[jerrysievert]

buy a huzzah from adafruit, it breaks everything out, and is much more tolerant than the board itself.

couple it with a small breadboard and an mb102, and you're good to go.

[zapt02]

Thanks!

[foxylad]

Onthe software side, the Arduino programming environment now supports the ESP8266. This makes it very easy to start playing.

One hint - to program, reboot with the programming pin (GPIO0) grounded, but take it back to 3.3V before you start programming. That took me a couple of hours to figure out.