What do app developer / internet of things engineers do over Christmas?
In my case I got away from computers for a bit, and created a pure analogue project – a retro lightning detector.
The advantage of an analogue detector like this is it sits quiescent on the edge of triggering, drawing very little power until a lightning bolt is detected. So you can pretty much leave it powered on, changing the batteries once very few months.
Of course, an analogue detector can be used to temporarily wake up a digital system. Although high end microcontrollers use significant amounts of power when awake, most internet of things digital microcontrollers provide a means of putting the device into a deep sleep, waiting for an electronic signal to wake the device temporarily to process the signal.
By taking advantage of mixing sensitive balanced analogue detectors with digital circuits, you can create battery powered internet of things devices with extreme field longevity, which can remain operational for months or years between battery changes.
Next time you have a requirement to create a remote sensing system which is difficult to service, consider contacting Desirable Apps. We offer an end to end vertically integrated service, from Internet of Things sensor design, all the way through to presenting the collected data on a web or mobile app based management console.