These days I don't think Arduinos are meaningfully more accessible than, say, an ESP8266 or ESP32. If I was starting a new hobby project today I'd choose the latter.
esp32 with 'free' (built-in) wifi/bluetooth is just so much easier to work with. That was my experience a few years back.
Don't the latter require separate board support in the Arduino IDE? That was at least the case in the past