monitoring box (was Re: small device with IP address)

[Bennett Todd <bet () rahul net>]

2000-12-22-11:30:28 Tom:
> It wouldn't be that difficult to roll a simple Altoid-tin
> sized board w/ an enet port (he say's before 
> he's done it:)

Sounds right to me.

> Seriously, there are a # of SOC in development for
> refridgerator web-interfaces & the like.

SOC? Or SBC?

> Question is, beyond pinging an isolated device,
> what's most useful?

Keep It Simple, no question.

> Could tack on an interface for; temp sensors, 
> power condition monitors, ect.

For cost/benefit tradeoff, I'd personally favour simply a temp
sensor. I _think_ it oughta be possible to package a little wart
including network I/F and simple-minded temp sensor that powers
itself entirely off the ethernet interface itself, i.e. doesn't need
any other power supply. Might need to be plugged in for a few
seconds before it succeeds in storing enough reserves to make it
through link negotiation, but if you could avoid having to plug into
a power socket at all it'd be so much handier.

> Further, how to best power; wall wart, batt, 
> combination of the two ?

Definitely none of the above.

How about a box that responds to just one protocol type, I'd tend to
vote for a trivial UDP packet that it doesn't even bother decoding,
just checks dst port and tears out src port and addr, with a reply
packet containing whatever encoding is easiest to generate of the
latest measurement off the temp sensor.

-Bennett

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