[K0balt]

So, the 1000 card problem is pretty easy. What matters is how much is on each card, and how long the DL window is.

For instance, if you can spend 2 hours downloading each card, (SPI to an esp32 can do about 32GB an hour) so you could Download 64GB in 2 hours via ESP32 boards with SPI uSD slots, pushed onto your server over wifi6.

If that’s enough, that’s a simple solution. If you need more than 32GB an hour per card, I’ve seen some adapters that hold 10? uSD cards and connect over SATA, so that might get you a better way into the bus than typical USB?

[Lerc]

I was thinking SPI access from a mcu would be the way to go. While the individual data rate would be fairly low, running a lot of them at the same time would probably add up.

If they just need the slots to plug everything in and leave overnight you could probably just run off some PCBs with heaps of card slots per mcu and let it cycle through them one after another

[K0balt]

With WiFi mcus below a dollar, no need to double up even.

[Lerc]

I dunno, Have you ever operated 1000 WiFi devices in the one room?

[K0balt]

It’s all 2.4, so you you can cook in there just fine.

But seriously that probably would be around 50w of tx power lol.

You could probably sort it with 10 good APs

But yeah, it’s going to be an RF star for sure.