there are several aspects to consider:
- webbased means, it works with any device with a modern browser w/o the need to install anything. That also means, you can even start with using a mobile phone at first, if the web application is “responsive”
- webased also means, the server is doing the steering and the browser does all the graphics calulation
- if using a PI 4 as platform, it is possible to provide an image for a SD card, so the only “installation” step for a user is to copy that image to the card - no need to have any idea of Arduino and programming, etc. You don’t even need a PC!
- I don’t see the decision “either C or Python” as Python can run with libs written in C. It should be possible to combine the benefits of these two. Python comes with Bottle or Django, but Angular is also a way to go
I’m no expert on software, so I won’t be a big help on that (only for hardware drivers perhaps), but what I can contribute is an adaptation of my PCB assembly into a PI4 hat. It would be much leaner and even more inexpensive due to the many possibilities the PI has out-of-the-box. Maybe around $25 including a power supply for the PI.
By the way: We have a guy here in the group (@joaquinperaza; more active in the Telegram group) who has a software running (!!) on a tablet, but AFAIK it’s not webbased. But of course it’s a “must” to collaborate with him as well as with @BrianTee_Admin of course!