Review on 📡 Izokee ESP-01 Serial WiFi Transceiver Module with USB Converter, Compatible with Arduino by Chris Laznovsky

This little device is very cool. I didn't get it at first, but after asking questions and experimenting with the community, I got it. The ESP8266 chip is what it is, a "programming board" is just a board that runs directly into your USB port for data and/or power. This is great because with this adapter you can run a device, read data and/or program it and you don't need any components other than the Arduino IDE. The only thing missing from this little board are the "Flash" buttons. To make it usable as a programmer you need to short the GPIO0 pin (pull low to GND). This should only be done when the device is connected to the network for a few seconds. Then you can easily send your program to the ESP8266 chip. Once you've programmed it, you can plug and unplug it as you please and the 8266 will run whatever program you have installed on it. Shorting GPIO0 to GND puts the 8266 into programming mode, and this can be easily done with the flash button, like NodeMCU Wi-Fi boards. Also very cool and very compact. Nice little thing.