I’ve seen these wifi dongles for $2 at Compusa. It would be really nice and cheap if a simple interface for a microcontroller could be built with one of them.
Because they are so cheap most of the grunt work is probably done on the host, but I don’t see why that grunt work could not be done with a microcontroller and some clever programming. In fact it probably would not take much clever programming because you could grab one of the linux drivers for these and just plain port it to your favorite microcontroller.
Is there something I’m missing here?
Yes you could buy a Wiport, but where is the fun in that.
Well essentially,all you would need to do is get the MCU to behave like a PC. I am sure you can get hold of a MCU that has USB host pheripheral and implement the driver, the Wi-Fi control stuff and of course the TCP/IP stack. All this might need decent code space and processing power, a ColdFire, ARM7/9 should be able to do it.
If these dongles already have drivers in the GPL arena, it should be possible to port it over to your MCU and get it working, I have seen similar stuff done for CF/PCMCIA based Wi-Fi adapters.
I might give it a go, but not until I get more up to speed with electronics and microcontrollers. I have 20 years of programming experience, but I am a newbie when it comes to electronics.
Maybe this is a good above my head project where I can leverage that programming experience and help push my electronics experience forward.
The $2 wifi adapter was from about a month back. I believe it was a rebate deal. Even if they are not $2, it is pretty easy to find one for under $10.
The basic idea is to have the cheapest possible hobby wifi to microntroller interface. Right now the cheapest I’ve been able to find is a ethernet board (sparkfun $35) plus a cheap wifi game adapter (buy.com $33).