[brendamn]

Is there a hardware platform better suited for these types of use cases?

Not that long ago it seemed the tradeoff was either use a cheap but unreliable hobby platform (RPi or Arduino), or a stable but expensive (and usually somewhat custom) platform that involves picking the right components, board design, etc. Espressif sounds like they might be filling this gap, but it’s been a long time since I’ve looked seriously at any of this.

[5ADBEEF]

ESP-32 or Nordic. Nordic has Wi-Fi and cellular now. Would assume most people would use a Quectel module + Nordic/ESP32 for this.

[Avamander]

Nordic also has a cellular module. So you could do it all with a single chip.