[TriEmbed] wireless communications and battery life

[Gregg Tracton]

> Your biggest problem may be transmitting through the Faraday cage of the
mailbox.

Use a plastic mailbox.  Mine has lasted 30 years, so they are pretty tough.

The camera is a nice idea for telling you how much mail there is, and if
there's a big box delivered that you need to get before package theives get
it.  The post office now has a free service where they will send you
pictures of each piece of mail, via email. (I know there's a meta joke in
there somewhere about email eating it's own ancestor...)

You also might consider a passive wifi amplifier.  It turns out that a
Pringles can -- the old style that was lined with metal - is a near-perfect
wave form for wifi frequencies, and had been demonstrated to amplify the
signal to a 1-mile range.  Don't know about the power requirements, though.

Look into mesh networks instead of wifi. At 250', you'll need
intermediaries, I'm sure.  Or a laser point to point system, which needs to
be perfectly aligned but would be really fun.  Lasers might have issues in
the rain, but using a reflector at the box and the laser at your home would
solve the power issues since all you'd need is a little piezo speaker to
tilt a mirror in/out of alignment to send a serial signal.

Think about how the cold will affect battery/charging power, and if you'll
need to waterproof the system, even inside the box.

-g


-- 
Gregg Tracton: tired, retired & inappropriately unattired (PJ's)
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