Four mistakes engineers make designing wireless sensors

With anything that is created, engineers make common mistakes in designing wireless sensors. Four mistakes commonly made are: over complication, using inexpensive technology, power issues, and not factoring global technological certifications.

One of the first mistakes when designing wireless sensors is making the sensor/router pairing process too complicated and counterintuitive. Some engineers even make security activation a separate and complicated process instead of incorporating it into the pairing process.

The second mistake made is not being aware of the wireless technology that will be used for the sensors. The mistake that occurs is when designers try to go with the readily available and inexpensive wireless technology, such as Wi-Fi. Designers should consider in their application with Wi-Fi, who is responsible for the network? And with Wi-Fi, it’s the customer’s IT people. The customer wants to own the Wi-Fi, because they are keeping people from getting into their enterprise system.

Another mistake engineers make when designing sensors is power consumption. Assumptions on the power budget versus real-life situations might not be correct. The current trend is customers are leaning away from using batteries, but leaning towards energy harvesting. As interesting as this trend may be, if the application has to be operational just like a wired switch, energy harvesting does not perform as well as batteries.

Lastly, engineers do not take into account the wireless technology approvals needed for different countries. When designing sensors to be wirelessly used in global facilities, engineers should understand that there are specific RF frequencies that are not license-free and can only be used in certain regions. Even if the RF frequencies are license-free, there are certain countries that have their own specific country certifications. China, Brazil, Korea, Japan, Israel, Mexico and others have their own certification requirements that must be adhered to. Failure to adhere to these requirements may lead to fines or being blocked from selling in the country altogether.

Honeywell
sensing.honeywell.com