There are hundreds of physical sensors and approaches that exist. New types of sensors appear almost every month. We, us a hardware device producers, want to be transparent about our know-how. In order to help SO’s, integrators and IoT platforms succeed in sales, we created webinar series, which started 4 June 2019 with the first insight, called “How physical sensors work, what they can and cannot do”. This blog post will help you to understand the general content of the insight. For more information, check out our webinar page.
Let’s start with some basic features of each sensor:
Price (0.2 – 40 USD)
Consumption (mostly negligible in comparison with Sigfox emission)
Longevity (6 months – 20 years)
Resolution/sensitivity/noise
Precision
Range of measurement
Size 1×2 mm – 50x20mm
Operating/temperature range
Intelligence due to local processing
MEMS (Microelectromechanical systems) are included in every mobile phone. Plus, they can be combined to one chip very often. There are three most common of them: accelerometer, magnetometer, and gyroscope. Let’s review them all briefly:
Accelerometer
Measuring direction to the earth center
Measuring acceleration
Lowest price, lowest consumption
Vibration detection
Freefall
Impact detection
Tilt/inclination
Magnetometer
Measuring direction to the North Pole
Basically a compass
Low price, middle consumption
Rotation in a vertical axis
Either in relation to Earth magnetic field or to a closeby permanent magnet
Door opening detection
Valve opening detection
Mobile road sign orientation
Gyroscope
Measuring steady movement in all directions
Middle price, high consumption
Mostly in stabilizing drones, cameras, segways, etc.
Can project paths between points in tunnels with no GPS coverage
Apart from MEMES, there are plenty of sensors more, but in order to succeed in your IoT project, you need to choose primarily based on the use case. Here is the infographic, where we describe the usage of some physical sensors.
Hungry for more sensors? Go check out our webinar page, where you can find the webinar recordings and slides!
Best wishes
Simple Hardware Team