[Acrobotic] has an interesting video about using WebSockets to allow a browser to talk to an ESP8266 web server in real time ... facilitates non-browser based clients that use the same service.

You’ll see in the video that the overclocked ESP8266 is quite capable. It draws text, 2D shapes, and even multiple 3D shapes. Oh, it also is serving out a web page at the same time. If you want ...