Detachable Internet of Things (IoT) modules can be coupled to products such as home appliances to create an IoT environment or ecosystem. The detachable IoT module includes a communication module insertable into a groove formed about an exterior surface of a home appliance and electrically connected with a controller in the home appliance, and a sensor module coupled to the communication module and electrically connected with the controller through the communication module, the sensor module capable of measuring an air state near the home appliance, where the sensor module and the home appliance are in wireless communication with an external terminal through the communication module.

A system and method is proposed to ensure detection of signal light integrity and viewability. The system includes a wireless network of signal light monitors attached unobtrusively to the sun visors on each signal light for which monitoring is required. Each signal light monitor includes diverse sensors which detect signal light integrity and viewability. The detection sensors are simultaneously active to detect signal light intensity, color intensity and viewability. The information obtained from the sensors is transmitted wirelessly to a base signal light monitor. The base signal light monitor communicates this information over a mesh network to an edge processor. The network is self-healing and ensures data integrity using a pre-calculated communication link if a communication link between base signal light monitors is lost or broken. The edge processor is capable of image and condition analysis on the detection data and communicates events to an enterprise network for action.

In some aspects, a system is provided that includes a plurality of communication nodes configured in a wireless mesh network or a low-power wireless network and a sensor assigned to a monitored subject. The sensor includes a first wireless network interface, for a first wireless network, adapted to communicate with the wireless mesh network or the low-power wireless network and a second wireless network interface, for a second wireless network, adapted to communicate with a mobile device. The sensor includes one or more processors adapted to receive, via the first wireless network, an indicator to transmit an identification message to the mobile device and, based on receiving the indicator, transmit, via the second wireless network, the identification message to the mobile device.

The present invention solves a very complex problem that is a major obstacles for electric utility industry's power lines vegetation encroachment management business. Vegetation contacts to the high voltage overhead power lines cause flash-over and/or blackout which results in hazardous situations and economic losses. Power line vegetation management is a very cost intensive business process which is essential to ensure safe, reliable and affordable electric energy supply by the electric utilities, transmission and generation owners. This routine electric utility vegetation management related work is mandated and overseen by applicable federal, state or local regulatory agencies. The state-of-the-art vegetation management process involves labor and cost intensive foot-patrol, vehicular patrol, air patrol and airborne LiDAR patrol of power lines. These methods are often inefficient, unreliable, risky and costly. The present invention provides a method and system for automated vegetation growth, condition and status monitoring near high voltage utility electric lines using stationary sensors, wireless or wired communications and computation technologies and proprietary algorithms. The method and system of the current invention monitors the power line infrastructures remotely and advises the vegetation maintenance crews on mitigating actions without requiring human interventions, thus saving cost and reducing risks to the humans and environment. A comprehensive vegetation encroachment condition report with vegetation proximity advisory (VPA) and vegetation resolution advisory (VRA) is automatically generated and transmitted to the operational staff by the system for each electric line span at certain time interval or continuously without boots-on-the-ground manual asset inspection and/or air patrol using aircraft. This current invention is an automated, safer and low-cost solution to an electric utility industry's essential reliability and compliance related business process.

An improved system and method for detecting smoke using a sensor is disclosed. The method can comprise the steps of storing in memory a plurality of smoke signatures, wherein each of the smoke signatures relates to how the sensor senses one of a plurality of particulates, each of the plurality of particulates indicative or non-indicative of a fire, and receiving current data from the sensor. Moreover, the method can comprise the steps of comparing the current data with the plurality of smoke signatures to determine if the current data matches any of the plurality of smoke signatures, and initiating an alarm sequence based at least in part on a determination as to whether the current data matches a smoke signature related to a fire-indicative particulate of the plurality of particulates.

The present invention solves a very complex problem that is a major obstacles for electric utility industry's power lines vegetation encroachment management business. Vegetation contacts to the high voltage overhead power lines cause flash-over and/or blackout which results in hazardous situations and economic losses. Power line vegetation management is a very cost intensive business process which is essential to ensure safe, reliable and affordable electric energy supply by the electric utilities, transmission and generation owners. This routine electric utility vegetation management related work is mandated and overseen by applicable federal, state or local regulatory agencies. The state-of-the-art vegetation management process involves labor and cost intensive foot-patrol, vehicular patrol, air patrol and airborne LIDAR patrol of power lines. These methods are often inefficient, unreliable, risky and costly. The present invention provides a method and system for automated vegetation growth, condition and status monitoring near high voltage utility electric lines using stationary sensors, wireless or wired communications and computation technologies and proprietary algorithms. The method and system of the current invention monitors the power line infrastructures remotely and advises the vegetation maintenance crews on mitigating actions without requiring human interventions, thus saving cost and reducing risks to the humans and environment. A comprehensive vegetation encroachment condition report with vegetation proximity advisory (VPA) and vegetation resolution advisory (VRA) is automatically generated and transmitted to the operational staff by the system for each electric line span at certain time interval or continuously without boots-on-the-ground manual asset inspection and/or air patrol using aircraft. This current invention is an automated, safer and low-cost solution to an electric utility industry's essential reliability and compliance related business process.

In a general aspect, motion is detected using wireless signals. In an example, a method includes receiving, at a wireless communication device, requests for the wireless communication device to transmit wireless signals, the requests initiated by a wireless sensing system. The method further includes transmitting a series of wireless signals from the wireless communication device in response to the requests, and detecting, at the wireless communication device, a trigger event after transmitting the series of wireless signals. The method additionally includes updating, by the wireless communication device, a state of the wireless communication device based on the trigger event, the updated state indicating that the wireless communication device is not enabled to transmit wireless signals in response to the requests from the wireless sensing system. The method also includes communicating, by the wireless communication device, the updated state of the wireless communication device to the wireless sensing system.

A wireless mesh network includes a controller in wireless communication with a plurality of slave devices where each slave device is assigned a virtual routing number that defines a time slot in a TDMA communications frame. The slave devices are configured to receive, out of band and/or separately from the TDMA communications frame, asynchronous transmissions of sensor data from battery operated sensor devices. The battery operated sensor devices transmit asynchronously and do not participate in the TDMA communications frame in order to save battery power. The slave devices store data received from the sensor devices until the data is requested by the controller through an initiation message. In response, the slave devices aggregate data received directly from asynchronous communications with data received from other slave devices during an accumulation process that passes the accumulated date back to the controller through the mesh network during a TDMA acknowledgement frame.

Examples described herein relate to network interface device that is configured to identify a trigger condition to cause transmission of a request to a next node to request the next node to pre-load a telemetry collection service prior to performance of a service and to collect specific telemetry data during performance of the service. In some examples, the request is transmitted using a connection with a particular quality of service. In some examples, the next node comprises a computing platform and a second network interface device and wherein the second network interface device is to transmit telemetry related to performance of the service to a target destination. In some examples, the network interface device comprises one or more of: network interface controller (NIC), SmartNIC, infrastructure processing unit (IPU), or data processing unit (DPU).

Systems, methods, and computer-readable storage media for dynamically adjusting nodes in a mesh network embedded in objects. The nodes, which are individually capable of sensing and/or transmitting data, are paired together such that when one node is active, the other node is collecting energy via solar, wind, or other energy collecting means. When a node reaches a certain energy level, the nodes can switch status, such that the passive node becomes active and vice versa. Exemplary objects in which the systems can be embedded include benches, receptacles, and light fixtures.