First off, thank you @kueblc for picking up the torch on this, and thanks to everyone who contributed in the past, for that is the only way for any of us to Have Nice Things(tm). 😄

I have been reading for the last couple days, unfortunately it appears that I have purchased some modules that contain the RTL8710 as I am getting the dreaded error as posted in the title. Therefore I won't bother posting logs, unless you feel they are relevant (so far all the threads I read point to this being a fairly reliable indicator).

At this point, I suppose the only things left to do are:

1. Warn others.
2. Contribute to any development that may be going on with RTL8710.
   and/or
3. Put these to use in my home in some other way.

And so, on to each of those in turn:

1. Warn others

I would love to do my part, however I could not even seem to figure out exactly the model number of the plugs I purchased from AliExpress, but here is the link: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000346047401.html Any advice here would be appreciated.

2. Contribute to any development that may be going on with RTL8710

I read in some post that you were not aware of any stable alternative, is this still the case? I have fair amount of equipment here and I am very willing to sacrifice one or more of my units for the greater good (as so many others have done before us).

3. Put these to use in my home in some other way

So they are not a complete loss (and in case I get any more modules like this in future) I think I would like to do something like keeping them on their own subnet, not connected to Internet (ie, "Network Of Things" (NOT) ) and using something like TuyaApi with the tuya-mqtt wrapper for openHAB. But that is more a statement than a question, and leaving it here to offer others in my same situation an alternative.

EDIT: It just occurred to me maybe convert this info into a Wiki topic. But I guess I will see what discussion is generated first.