Well either way I am glad you have gotten it to work correctly.
Oddly I don't understand how on and off without setting the GPIO as an Input or Output works but it must just work like that for the LED using the standard using arduino but I thought you would have to express some kind of port information somewhere maybe it is in your scripting?
I guess I am not certain how everything works with arduino however I am more curious at making this work alone for me there is much more advantage cost wise to have a workable solution without using two devices to rely on instead 1 device preforming the task not only eliminates cost but it eliminates the worry that there is a communication error with one device or another. I do have an arduino and a raspberry pi to mess with some time this winter but getting to know the nodemcu is first on my list even if it takes me all winter ;)
Where I buy my ESP8266 boards from... (Banggood)