Looking for practical Arduino projects? This guide shows how to control a relay from your smartphone using an Arduino Uno — either via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.

Setup is fairly simple with downloads for Linux, OS X, and Windows. This isn’t an ESP8266 shield, either: you can write code for the ESP module, connect the serial pins, and hit the program button.

All the time, try adding even a simple touch-screen LCD to an ESP8266…BAM! And while Arduino may have been targeting beginners initially there are a lot of companies using it these days as a low ...