These days I don't think Arduinos are meaningfully more accessible than, say, an ESP8266 or ESP32. If I was starting a new hobby project today I'd choose the latter.
These days I don't think Arduinos are meaningfully more accessible than, say, an ESP8266 or ESP32. If I was starting a new hobby project today I'd choose the latter.
Don't the latter require separate board support in the Arduino IDE? That was at least the case in the past
That's only if you're using the Arduino IDE though, and it's so commonplace that instructions are widespread. Many are using MicroPython/CircuitPython which are independent from Arduino.
esp32 with 'free' (built-in) wifi/bluetooth is just so much easier to work with. That was my experience a few years back.
The first esp8266 I bought was as a dedicated wifi chip for an arduino (or something) project. I discovered after getting it, that it came with a 'free' MCU (that was default flashed with a UART/AT-command firmware to allow other MCUs to get wifi)
funny indeed, as the add-on card (esp8266) is a lot more powerful than an Arduino.