How to Design a Super Simple Sensor System for Industrial Monitoring Applications
Creating custom sensor solutions for home or automation typically requires a great deal of customization. A variety of sensors from perhaps several manufacturers are collected on a circuit board, firmware must be engineered, and a user interface or dashboard created. It isn’t overwhelmingly difficult work—but it can be rather tedious and time-consuming. The customization aspect may also make it cost-prohibitive in many use cases.
The idea behind this project was to create a “Super Simple Sensor System” that allows a wide variety of input and output nodes to be linked together with a common protocol with the fewest number of wires possible and low upgrade/replacement cost. This subsystem will hopefully spark creativity in your designs but it is not a market-ready product.
The inspiration came from the wonderfully designed Makeblock Neuron line of children’s educational toys. Multiple sensors and inputs (temperature, humidity, joystick, buttons, etc.) are connected with a variety of outputs and interfaces (LED display, buzzer, etc.) and all of the devices connect via magnetic spring-loaded pogo-pin connectors.
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