| I love how he has a link to "what is it for?" but never answers the question. As far as I can tell this is the technoblogger equivalent of end-of-society prepping? In the event of something so catastrophic happening that the internet stops functioning for an extended period of time, you're not going to be hauling this enormous brick around with you. It's absurd. In an end-of-society situation you're likely on foot, maybe on bicycle (until the bike breaks down in a way you can't fix, or gets flats and you can't find tubes), and your available weight and space is going to be prioritized towards basics like food, shelter, clothing, basic health/tool items, and self defense. How you get 90% of the way there: a USB solar panel, a bluetooth keyboard, and a smartphone with an external storage memory device. Maybe a USB to ethernet adapter and a USB hub. Many modern phones are even water/dust proof to a pretty reasonable degree, more so if you put them in a ruggedized case. I dare him to carry that thing 10 miles... |
I build things that roughly resemble this (low volume, custom, solving use cases that are too niche for an industrial offering to be created), for money. I'd hire this guy in a minute to outsource things to or collaborate with, so I see the project as a kind of personal resume.
IMO he should find a specific scenario where something along these lines would be valuable. One I am personally involved in is marine electronics diagnosis. Primarily NMEA2000 networks and the devices on them, and the same devices on Ethernet. It's too much detail to go into, plus I'm on a flight after spending a week in Vegas for a trade show, but with just a little bit of reconfiguration work this could be a Thing that higher end marine electronics techs would really dig. Then I think you could also delve deeper into the considerations put into the design and component selection details.