Review on ESP-12E WeMos D1 WiFi Uno Based ESP8266 Shield for Arduino Compatible by Qunqi Smart Electronics by Johnnie Bowlan

I've looked at tons of tutorials online and can't seem to get it to work. It works in the sense that I can use it like another Arduino, but the wifi part doesn't work at all. It can't connect or do anything with the ESP8266Wifi library (even if it compiles correctly). Basically I'm stuck trying to make it act as a Wi-Fi source and then connect on my phone or computer but it just doesn't show up. I've tried different Wemos boards to see if anything changes, different examples, different board versions. I even tried connecting it to my network but that doesn't work either.