First Arduino project...what board works bes with the plugin

First project in Arduino. I picked up 1/2 dozen ESP8266 Wemos D1 Mini (clone) thinking Arduino is Arduino.
Will the "FREE-undefined" work in the pull down or should I get a different board?

Project I have in mind are:

- Battery powered LED Candle attached it Indigo via Arduino
- Wireless Amplifier/Speaker powered by 12vAC landscape lighting. Hoping tha t Arduino can act as the receiver from Airfoil
- 12/24v color "hue like" light (again powered off my landscape lighting)

I don't know much about Arduino but what I have played with so far is a blast:)

While Karl knows infinitely more about this stuff, I've gotten really into building my own home automation hardware in the last year. Granted, some of it is a little insane and more performance art than utility, definitely feel free to message me. I have some of the stuff up on YouTube/Instagram/Reddit.

I might be able to save you a lot of floundering that I initially did, especially with Wi-Fi devices using an Arduino environment.

Lol I realized I was just responding to you about your other wled project, I can continue to help with that as well.

Below: Esp32's with custom pcb carrier-relay boards

Below: esp32 proto-board with 3 temp sensors, flow meter, display, and servo that controls an open loop hot water radiator system I made out of some garbage


Below: custom pcb with esp32, pir, oles, and bme280 (I am deploying around 10 or more of these to handle motion tracking and temperature reporting in my house)