Discriminating between rk3229 and rk3228a/b at the moment is not certain, and AFAIK there are no easy-to-handle android tools which are able to tell if you got the former or the latter in a certain way.
There are some technicalities which can give us hints, but they are not at the reach of regular users (ie: tinkering with trust OS, reading the efuse, etc...)
From another point of view, rk3229 and rk3228a/b are quite similar, you can read the differences in the first page.
Wifi depends upon the chip installed on the tvbox, so you should open it and look for the chip, but if it does not work out of the box it is likely not yet supported, nonetheless it could be useful to know if you got a new/uncommon wifi chip or a common one. You would probably like to use an USB dongle for the time being.
Remotes should be configured first since it is very common that they use different codes. There are tutorials here and there on the forum. The procedure is the same for all the vendors, so the tutorials in the amlogic section will apply to these boxes too.
Thank you for the detailed and insightful answer.
I've concluded that I have a RK3228a/b board, due to only having the 3228a/b mainline image work (without wifi and CEC). I've got a dongle now that works so I'm set.
Appreciate the help.