Yesterday at the Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose I saw David Ewing of Synapse demo his company's cool Python-controlled mesh networking hardware/software.
The embedded devices contain a Python bytecode interpreter. You blast your code down to them over the wireless mesh network the devices themselves are realizing via a special USB dongle connected to your computer. From your Python code running on a device you can make unicast or multicast XML-RPC calls to the other devices running on the network.
There is a library of C functions you can call from the Python code to accomplish various real-time tasks. I asked if it was possible to write new C functions of your own which can be called from the Python code. Right now that's not possible but they are working on it and at some point in the future it might be possible to do so utilizing sdcc as the C compiler.
I was really impressed with the demos and the simplicity with which various applications can be realized using this technology!
You can get a development kit from Digikey for $150.
(For the record I'm not associated in any way with Synapse Inc.)
Indeed it's wild. Didn't mention in my orig. post but at the ESC demo Ewing made the point that given the various overheads typical performance is closer to 100 kbps and bursty FWIW. Still fast compared to my first POTS modem which ran at 2.4 kbps.
You don't even need one in every appliance to do this:
"much like CDs in the CDDB, AMEE has discovered that the energy fluctuations of home appliances are so unique that they can tell what make and model of refrigerator you have by the way it acts when the motor turns on. Then it can suggest a more energy efficient appliance"
