Reddit mentions of ESP8266 microcontroller NodeMCU Lua WiFi with CP2102 USB

OP, if you want to save yourself a HUGE amount of headache, you should ditch the ESP-01 device and rather use something like a NodeMCU or Wemos D1 mini (I prefer the NodeMCU). They both operate with an ESP8266 at their core, but they handle a lot of things like power supply, serial-to-USB conversion, etc. They also have between 4x and 8x more flash memory than the ESP-01, which may matter to you later on when you get to web servers and data loggers.


The ESP-01 looks simple because it's small and has few pins, but I found that it was much harder to get started with because it's very sensitive to small issues. For example, I struggled for ages with my ESP-01 where it would start and I could upload code, but it wouldn't connect to a wifi network. Hours later, I found out that the 3.3 volts I was supplying wasn't smooth enough, and I needed to use a capacitor across the power supply pins. With a NodeMCU, all that stuff is taken care of and it just works.

That's totally doable, it's just that the learning curve is steep if you aren't already familiar with micro controller projects.

I am sure that raspberry pi will work for this, but I am familiar with arduino type things so that's what I would start with. A "node mcu" controller has the wifi capability, then you will need a few current transformers like this, and a couple analog to digital converters (because the node mcu only has 1 analog channel)

There are boards that are similar to Arduino, but using an ESP8266 chip with integrated WiFi. "Node MCU" boards are cheap and popular: https://www.amazon.com/ESP8266-microcontroller-NodeMCU-WiFi-CP2102/dp/B071WRD25D/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=nodemcu&qid=1566047923&s=gateway&sr=8-5