We are a very tiny company looking for a solution to a problem: We need to provide contact closure at a remote, battery powered device wirelessly.
Ideally, the connection would be 802.11x, and the contact closure provided via a well formed URL to the IP address for each device. Failing in that, perhaps some kind of RF solution would be interesting, but again the end result is that a particular, identifiable device is given the command to provide contact closure and it complies. The distances are going to 100' or less, and under ideal (line of sight) conditions, mostly.
"Nice to haves":
-A way to query each device for health statistics such as rf signal strength and battery voltage.
-12vdc native power requirement.
-Embedded server running Linux, allowing a full featured web server.
We envision using a simple Adobe/Macromedia Flash software instance to trigger and control the remote contact closure from a nearby laptop, thus a simple URL is best. The cost of the unit's components responsible for the contact closure must be well under $50 total. As there are wireless ip cameras under that price that are complete web servers (see Edimax), this should not be too difficult. Another thing is that there will be many such devices deployed and controlled in a small area, so they need to be individually addressable.
We just want to know if Arduino can provide such a solution.
