Perhaps there are those of you who might want a more detailed answer why this project actually exists. Therefore, this is the case: look, when I decided to bog down in the world of automation, I did not plan to invent any devices. So for the beginning, I decided to study the market, because it is unlikely that I want something unique and perverse - all I need is a decent number of inputs, a decent amount of outputs and that the device itself to be able to communicate with the head unit from point 3 by wifi or via ethernet.
To my surprise, neither Google nor my acquaintances provided me with a lot of options to choose from: a series of devices from our Chinese friends and a couple of good old domestic companies. According to reviews, some of the devices had crappy firmwares and the network dropped off under certain circumstances, costs were prohibitive for the others (there were also all sorts of cloud services and mobile applications coming with them, so apparently they were just trying to earn their buck). I deliberately do not name the models and companies so as not to ruin them - there may be the case where we just do not know how to use them properly, and my two subscribers will wrongfully ignore them and not invest their fortune into their products.
In addition, there are completely DIY projects in the form of separate development versions of different controller chips and all sorts of firmware (based on arduino or esp) from their communities, implementing the appropriate functionality. But the crap is that even if we take them, how to use them in real life then? In the sense of where to fix them, how to connect the power, so that is reliable and doesn’t drop off at any sneeze? Therefore we need a suitable box, we need normal outputs, connectors, etc., which means that our own board with fasteners and wiring is not far off, not to mention the fact that there must be a written or pre-configured firmware that takes into account this hardware design.
 
As a result, having a miserable experience in radio engineering (I bought a soldering iron to reset a password), a little bit more experience in product development, a desire to save on these stupid controllers, as well as a thirst for inventions, I moved on to the development of my own device.