These days businesses are all talking about the Internet of Things and how Cisco predicts 25 billion devices will be connected by 2015.
All around the hobbyist community various internet shields and internet ready devices like the Raspberry Pi cost somewhere around $35. The ENC28J60 is $21. The Electric Imp is $30. The Nanode Classic is $40.
When I check out PICs and AVRs chips with built-in ethernet, they all seem to cost something like $6. Toss in an RJ-45, various other components, a PCB and a lot of time and I seem to be back to something almost as expensive as the hobby grade systems.
With all this talk of the Internet of Things, and the cheapest 32-bit PICs around $1, it just feels out of place that I haven't encountered any complete ethernet solutions for under $3. I can't imagine any designers willing to equip an alarm clock with internet connectivity for $25.
As a CS student about to graduate, I am trying to create a small volume product with the electronics costing under $10 that will send very simple analog data by ethernet to my web service. I have built the web app and prototyped with a Raspberry Pi, but $60 for an internet connected sensor is just too expensive.
Can anyone shed some light as to whether web connected sensors under $10 are possible for a guy like me to develop or use? Maybe they exist and I just haven't found them?
Best Answer
Once you include your MCU, possibly an Ethernet MAC/PHY (PIC18F97J parts have integrated MAC/PHY, as do a few other MCU's), Ethernet magnetics & jack, power supplies, I/O & power connectors, board manufacture... everything adds up in a hurry when you're paying one-off prices. You'd struggle to make one for sub-$20, let alone sub-$10. Once you can make them by the thousand the price-per-unit comes down, but until then you're pretty much screwed.