I (too?) found that having a controller device ‘wake up’; connect websocket; send command; disconnect’; go to sleep was unreliable.
I’d love a UDP interface! Or for me, BLE or ESP-now would be great, so my controller doesn’t even have to wait while it connects to WiFi AP. I was trying to implement a remote control for pixelblaze, and since the remote runs on battery, it’s off most of the time, until a button is pressed.
(My request previously: Feature Request - Faster/simpler network API, such as HTTP API (or BLE) )