Sense PlaNet » sensors

Smart Home Gateway?

daniel — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 14:50:44 +0000

Internet is not just for the web browsing any more. The web of things will also rely on the internet to convey information between our environment, things and ourselves.
Now, the question raised is how things will access the internet, what will be their gateway.
For now, let’s narrow down the problem to the home monitoring vertical which leads to two different approaches:

rely on the computer connectivity to convey data( PC, Mac,…that is ).
rely on the router ( by the way, check out MyOpenRouter)

In either case, a piece of software and a connectivity add-on will have to be installed on the gateway.

Please refer below to the diagrams below explaining the two designs.

I think that the web of things will very likely bypass the personal computer and will leverage routers for connectivity and mobile handsets for user interface.
This design should dominate the market for two reasons:

energy consumption: routers are much less energy-consuming than a PC. If one appliance needs to remain on
browser is the new desktop: energy management softwares are always implemented as software-as-a-service. Therefore the computing power of the personal computer will not be utilized.
mobile application: It’s never been so easy to provide application to monitor the home. I think that every environment monitoring products will come along with a mobile application to download.
reliability: a router is always on, always connected and more importantly dedicated to one task
router usb connectivity: the router provides a way to get enhanced in functionality thanks to usb dongle. The usb dongle can be the piece of software and the connectivity add-on to communicate with things around us.

In conclusion, the web of things will definitely foster the home router breakthrough as the centerpiece in smart home.
Most importantly, check out MyOpenRouter to understand the future of routers and how they can be tailored for the smart home.

Sensys Networks: wireless sensors for traffic management

daniel — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:30:22 +0000

I love Paris: a city packed with history, culture, elegance as well as cranky people and traffic jam!….When I come back to Paris from my new hometown San Francisco, I am just flabbergasted by the streets jam-packed with cars and trucks…all day long. Willy nilly, it has to be fixed.

And here comes a ray of hope: Sensys Networks with their smart traffic management solution based on wireless sensors can help reduce traffic congestion. Indeed, “if you cannot measure it, you cannot improve” statement is also very true for traffic management and Sensys Networks with their magnetic, 10 year battery life, wireless powered sensors can help municipalities glean real-time traffic information so as to improve their transportation grid.

This is crucial: in cities teeming with cars and traffic, technology like Sensys Networks is the key towards greener and monitorable neighborhoods for us, human, to live in.

Sensaris: wireless sensors for air quality measurement

daniel — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:12:59 +0000

Sensaris, a company based in Paris has unveiled a cool new product to monitor air pollution. It utilizes GPS wireless sensors along with an embedded Bluetooth chip to send over the measured data.
This is a ground breaking approach that will help evaluate the air quality more accurately, compared to fixed measurement station.
Kudos for this innovation and good luck for the trial.

You can thumb through a good review here.

Sentilla Perk Kit

daniel — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 05:16:14 +0000

Sentilla Perk Kit is the perfect starter to evaluate and prototype a solution using wireless sensors. The starter kit is pretty cheap compared to the competition such as Dust Networks and you can find more info over here.
Sentilla approach is ground-breaking: it brings Java support to wireless sensors or other connected tiny devices.
However, it seems that their strategy has changed lately and Sentilla now provides energy monitoring solutions in lieu of a development platform.

That said, let’s delve into the Perk Kit:

OUT-OF-BOX:
Sentilla Perk Kit

In the perk kit, one can find:

- 2 motes
- 1 usb gateway
- the installation CD
- a quick setup manual

The two motes are by default tied to a specific usb gateway. So as to use other motes with the same usb gateway, all the motes should be configured to use the same channel id. The trick can be found here if you have developer community access here.

INSTALLATION of the development platform ( based off Eclipse ):

On Windows, the installation is straight-forward by inserting the installation disk. Nothing tricky to report here.
On Mac, the Sentilla development platform is also very easy to install.
The trick is that on Mac, super user permissions are required to launch the Sentilla workspace, hence your java files permission may be messed up! Indeed, I’ve switched over my development from Windows to Mac and encoutered many problems…”chmod 0755″ all your java files should fix everything.

TECHNICAL SUPPORT and glitches:

The technical support is awesome.
I am not saying that you can expect the support folks to answer all of your questions, from the more obvious ones to the whimsical new feature request!
Basically, if you have a problem, you’ll have to get enough insight so that the technical support team can lead you to find the solution by yourself.

Few glitches may be encountered during application setup. More specifically, I’ve gone through many problems with the firmware flash through USB…I definitely advise NOT to use any usb hub which was the main cause of my problems among others.

I’ll be using the Sentilla motes to connect my sensors to a RESTful API of my own. I am very thrilled about this project and am looking forward to describe it further after the prototyping ( expected end of July! )…stay tuned.

Hope this review helps.