What can I say about the ESP8266? It’s cheap, powerful and I use it to stream images from my phone to my Smart POV Poi.
Currently I am using the ESP-01 version (above) – I connect the esp-01 to the breadboard by this simple hack:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Making-ESP8266-01-module-breadboard-friendly/
I also use the very capable D1 Mini for development (below).
The code is all Arduino, with FastLED library for led driving. The only issue with ESP8266 is power consumption, the wifi uses far more power than the Atmega328 for example, however compared to the LED strips (144 LED’s at once) it is negligible.