USB wired printer communication only (network is strictly for GUI)?

Is a wired connection the only way to manage a printer in Octoprint? I have a CR-10 Smart, which has wifi and cabled network capabilities (although it seems that is because it's a built-in creality cloud box, not technically 'onboard networking' for the printer), but I was curious since the UI appears to only have direct-connect as a possibility of communication between Octoprint and the printer itself.

There's no way that I know of for OctoPrint to connect wirelessly as you want it to. It is possible to do serial over network, and may be easier in future OctoPrint updates with the new communication layer going in soon.

The Creality WiFi box does a similar thing to OctoPrint, it throws up a UI that you can connect to to manage the printer. It doesn't have a serial port over the network that I know of. It connects to the printer the same way OctoPrint would, with a serial connection, wired. So you'll need to connect using the USB port of the printer.

Ok. If anyone else is curious, I found this article which talks about re-flashing the Creality Cloud/WiFi box with OpenWRT and Klipper. The trick is that these instructions are for the standalone device, not the one that's been stashed inside the CR-10 Smart. I'll have to do some tinkering to see if the printer will still function if this board is disabled (such as if the instructions brick it).

I may give that a shot and see what it's like, or just skip it and hook up to the internal micro USB port that is hidden inside the CR-10 Smart itself.