The Gecko Sensor: An Ultra-Compact, Low-Cost, Solar-Powered Environment Monitoring Device

Abstract

The rise of IoT and 5G-powered cybernetic connectivity has drastically transformed our living environment with the rapid introduction of diverse and disaggregated sensing systems. A plethora of prototyping boards and development kits offering disparate environmental condition sensors have become available to promote DIY applications, but they require significant user programming and assembly. The adoption of commercial products on the other hand is largely limited by the high costs associated with device capability, installation and maintenance. These expenses are dominated by the power and connectivity requirements as well as long-term upkeep of device operations. To overcome these challenges, we developed an ultra-compact, low-cost and a fully packaged environmental sensing device capable of monitoring up to seven parameters at once that can be easily installed on any surface and recharges automatically with embedded solar energy harvesting. We believe this compact and power-efficient sensing device will provide an unobtrusive and cost-effective example for future distributed environment monitoring systems with a wide variety of applications.