Get ready to be sad.

All I want is a WiFi shield for my Arduino. I want to snap a little board on top of my Arduino, throw in some code to specify a WiFi network to connect to, and then I want to be able to do socket programming on my Arduino like I can on my desktop. That's all I want.

Infrequently I'll take flak for owning a MacBook Pro or an iPhone. Someone will come along and they'll tell me that I shouldn't support Apple's closed and evil software philosophy, or that I've paid way too much for my computer, or that MacPorts blows goats on a jetski (this last one is totally valid. Choosing between MacPorts, Fink and HomeBrew is like picking whether you want your arm, leg or face pulled off). I take all that criticism, ignore it, and then set it on fire. Why? Because I am a firm believer in what I like to call the "and then move on with your life" philosophy. Here's why I got a MacBook: I asked a friend what kind of laptop I should get. He said I could get a Dell or an HP if I hated myself, I could get something even cheaper and throw a lightweight Linux distro on it, or I could get a MacBook "and then move on with my life." Sold. My friend saw through my question and accurately inferred that what I was really asking was "What's the fastest way to get from where I am now to a place where I can be enjoying laptop-ownership?" And by far the fastest way was in the driver's seat of a MacBook Pro.

That takes us back to the Arduino. What I really want is to be able to connect my Arduino to something else, be it my phone or my laptop or something. I want to get the two communicating and I want it to be easy and lightweight. In other words, I want to get a WiFi shield "and then move on with my life." Unfortunately it doesn't look like the Arduino community understands this philosophy. A quick google search for Arduino WiFi shield yields these results:

http://www.bizoner.com/arduino-wifi-ieee80211bg-serial-shield-internal-antenna-p-232.html
http://www.robotshop.com/anaconda-wifi-shield-arduino.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=base&utm_campaign=jos
http://www.robotshop.com/cupperhead-wifi-shield-arduino.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=base&utm_campaign=jos
http://www.linkspritedirect.com/product_info.php?products_id=63&cPath=6#googlebase
http://www.linkspritedirect.com/product_info.php?products_id=25&cPath=7#googlebase
http://www.linksprite.com/product/showproduct.php?lang=en&id=73
http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9954
http://www.cutedigi.com/product_info.php?products_id=4361
https://diysandbox.com/our-products/arduino-shields/hydrogen

All these options with no end--or reviews--in sight. This tells me a number of things: 1. Simple WiFi connectivity might not be that hard, which is good. I mean, the market for Arduino WiFi shields isn't exactly huge. If this many parallel solutions exist then the cost to actually develop something like this must be pretty small. 2. There is no standard solution for WiFi on Arduino, which sucks. This means that each of these boards probably has its own code to go with it, and that the mileage I'll get out of each board will depend not only on the design of the hardware but also on the quality of the documentation. It also means that I'm going to spend a lot of time combing through Arduino forums filled with incomplete or outdated information. Yay. 3. Any solution I develop for working with one shield and software combo will be totally ad-hoc and will not work with another shield and software pairing. For me personally it means that if down the road I decide I don't like a particular board that I'll have to re-write all my network code from scratch. On a level that affects other people it means that it will be really hard to develop a cross-platform library for WiFi on Arduino, something that could be agnostic to which WiFi shield you're using.

What I really want is to slap on a WiFi shield and move on with my life. Instead, I'm going to buy a few of these boards, try them out, and write up a nice comparison, just in time for non-denominational Jesus day. Hopefully the picture isn't as bleak as I've painted it, and getting all this stuff to play together isn't as bad as I suspect it will be. But I'm not holding my breath.