Which Arduino IOT-Product should i use?

Projects General Guidance
1

Hello!

This is about what kind of hardware i should acquire for my next project.

I wanna set up a website with a live-video stream from a ip cam (arduino has nothing to do with the cam). The cam is pointing on a special display. So the user can see that display in live video.

To control the display, i want to use an arduino product. It should have the possibility to look for data in a MySQL database. If there is a new entry, the arduino takes the new value, and will display it on the "special display". It will be displayed for a given time, and after that time, a placeholder-value will be shown. The Display contains 16 piece of a 32-bit Shift-Register.

Since this is will be my first project with Internet connectivity and i have no knowledge about IOT, i wonder what would be best here. I have done a lot of things with UNO/MEGA, and Bootloaded AtMega328.

What would be good for this project?

UNO with Ethernet shield?
Arduino Yun?
Something else, not arduino brand, but IDE compatible?

Maybe someone here can recommend something.

2

ESP8266 is an option. They are programmable with the Arduino IDE.ESP8266 Arduino

3

So you have a webcam, pointed at a display controlled by a network connected Arduino making MySQL queries. I take it this is for airgap security? (otherwise, I'd just display the information on a website).

How large of a display do you need for this? The Arduino-controllable displays cap out at like 4 or 5", which is a little small if you want it readable over a webcam.

The first question to ask here is does an Arduino even make sense? Does the proposed Arduino do anything other than interacting with the display and making the sql queries? If not, why not use a Raspberry Pi or one of the other similar low cost linux computers - those often have HDMI ports so you can put a nice big display on it that will be clearly readable through the cam (and they're generally easier to develop on, since you have a full OS and all the pleasant trappings of modernity, vs coding close to metal on an Arduino).