How minimal can a decent home automation setup be? If you need an HTML frontend, you’re going to need a webserver. An ESP8266 will do the trick. And then you need to be able to control your electronics. The cheapest and easiest way to do that is with the ubiquitous 433 MHz remote-controlled outlets and a $1 radio unit from an online auction site. Add in a cheap ESP8266 module, and your total outlay is going to be under $20.

That’s exactly what [Nikos Kantarakias] did. He combined a bunch of available ESP8266 Arduino libraries — one for driving the 433 MHz radio modules, [Paul Stoffregen]’s libraries for keeping time and for setting alarms, and another for keeping track of time zones — with some of his own code for setting up WiFi access, and it’s done.

It’s all available on GitHub for your perusal. The code does some strange things — like requiring a complete reboot every time you set an alarm — but it does let you set recurring and one-off activations of the attached devices with a web interface that’s served off the ESP8266 itself. If you want your coffee machine to turn itself on in the mornings, and want a system that’s easy for the other inhabitants of your house to configure, something like this might be just the ticket.

But if you’re looking for a project on the other end of the ESP-tech spectrum, [CNLohr] wrote a standalone Ethernet controller for the thing. Woah.