I'm in a similar position in that I'm a software guy and I recently started a hardware project, although I probably have less web dev experience and quite a bit

I'm in a similar position in that I'm a software guy and I recently started a hardware project, although I probably have less web dev experience and quite a bit more C experience. As others here have mentioned, check out http://sparkfun.com http://sparkfun.com. From what I understand, Atmel microcontrollers are pretty widely used. (A microcontroller is basically a CPU with peripherals and RAM all bundled onto a single chip.) I bought a little SAM7 board and it has been working pretty well for me. My app isn't as complex as yours, and I have found debugging to be quite difficult. If you're programming at the microcontroller level, you probably will end up needing a hardware debugger of some kind. I got a little JTAG unit, although I haven't made much use of it yet. In summary, these embedded projects are certainly doable, but you're going to have to put a lot of time into it. It also helps if you find someone who's already done this kind of thing to talk to.