Wireless Sensor Networks Blog

Self-Powering, Wireless Energy Sensors Join the Internet

Humans are inherently inefficient creatures. We leave lights on needlessly, keep the home thermostat cranked up with the windows open, forget to turn off our televisions when we leave the house.

And despite the advances in computing power over the past few decades, our buildings aren’t doing anything to make up for our inefficiencies.

“Most buildings today are dumb,” says EnOcean Chairman Graham Martin, “meaning they completely lack automation systems to manage energy use.”

EnOcean wants to change that. The company created a self-powered, energy-harvesting sensor, which which can be found inside of the inexpensive, easy-to-install light switches and thermostats EnOcean manufactures.

Now those sensors are able to communicate via TCP/IP networks, which means that when installed, the energy use of any web-connected building can be managed from another web-connected device.

EnOcean’s sensors are the latest in a wave of increasingly connected and intelligent objects that some people have termed “the internet of things.” British microprocessor giant Arm Holdings, for example, has bolstered this development with its mbed project, which gives engineers a cheap toolkit to work on a microcontroller, and the encouragement to come up with novel ways to connect them to other (often unconventional) objects. Other companies, like EnOcean and semiconductor maker Atheros, are focused on developing low-cost, low-consumption devices that can operate on wireless networks.

Pressing an EnOcean switch to turn a light on generates enough energy to send out a wireless signal, which enables communication between the switch and a wireless receiver up to nearly 100 feet away. Until recently, EnOcean sensors were only communicating amongst themselves and a specific wireless receiver within range. Now, with TCP/IP enabled communication, any computer hooked up to the internet can communicate with the sensors.

More info here.