21 May 2007

Open Motes

Wow, a new one on me:

SquidBee is an Open Hardware and Source wireless sensor device. The goal of SquidBee is getting an "open mote" to create Sensor Networks.

The main concepts behind SquidBee are:

* Self-powered

* Wireless Comunications

Repeat with me: "Ubiquity, Ubiquity, Ubiquity..."

How does SquidBee work?

1. Acquires values from environment parameters: temperature, humidity, lightness, presence, pressure or (almost!) whatever you can sense.
2. Operates with these values, when required.
3. Transmits these values using a low power comsumption wireless technology (ZigBee).
4. Sleeps until next timeout and repeats from the first stept.

Second step is not always necessary, depending of the calculations needed it may be better to make them in receiver computer to save nodes energy.

An open mote? What does it really mean?

It means every part of the mote is accessible and can be studied, changed, personalized, ... From the schematic circuit to the source code of the programs that are running inside the mote.

(Via dailywireless.org.)

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