Fantastic quality board for a fantastic price. I already had the CH340 USB driver installed for a different board so the NodeMCU worked right away with Arduino IDE. There are 3 main ways to use this:
- Program it using Lua, I believe the firmware it comes with supports this although I didn't try it.
- Write code for it in Arduino IDE (C++). This is the most flexible and highest-performance option, and gives you access to extensive libraries available in Arduino IDE with one button click. Environment is very similar to coding for Arduino.
- Use it as a "dumb" WiFi peripheral with AT commands sent over the serial port from another CPU (Hayes modem style). The firmware you need to load for this is fairly easily found on the web.
Note that it's wider than some other NodeMCU boards so it doesn't leave any connection points available beside it when on a standard project board, but this is easily solved using some non-stranded hookup wire connected underneath.

10pcs in perfect condition i am so happy with these!