Environmental sensing concepts

Understand the jargon used when working with environmental sensors: measurement, polling interval, load detection, etc.

The concepts that are often used in the context of environmental sensing are described below.

Environmental sensor

An environmental sensor is an external sensor that operates in combination with a tracker to sends its measurement data to the Sensolus platform. The sensor communicates with the tracker over BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy). The sensor measurements additional information on the asset or the surround environment. Different types of sensors exist to monitor different environmental factors: temperature, humidity, presence, being loaded, orientation, ….

Measurement

A measurement is a concept used in the context of environmental sensors. With measurement we refer to the calculated or aggregated measurement based on the different raw measurements polled by the sensor. A measurement can for example be the highest value of all the raw measurements generated during the different polls (if for example an alert must be raised if a certain temperature is exceeded) during the measurement interval. It can also be the average value of the different raw measurements done during the different polls. Following aggregation functions to generate a measurement are supported:
  • max: the max of all polled values
  • min: the min of all polled values
  • average: the average of all polled values
  • sum: the sum of all polled values (this is useful for example presence sensors)
  • last: last polled value (this is useful when combining polling with alerting)

Measurement interval

The measurement interval is a concept used in the context of environmental sensors. The measurement interval is the period of time between two calculated measurements. A measurement interval is always longer then a polling interval and refers to the calculated measurement based on the different raw measurements captured during the different polls.

Polling interval

The polling interval is a concept used in the context of environmental sensors. The polling interval is the period of time between two raw environmental sensor measurements. It is not because a raw measurement is polled that it is also directly send to the Sensolus platform. In certain use cases only aggregated measurements are send to the platform or different measurements are send as a cluster to the Sensolus platform once an hour. Polling interval time is therefore different from the measurement send to the platform and message sending time. The configuration of the polling interval depends on the sensor and the customer needs.