The Wicked Node is a combined radio transmitter and sensor platform designed as a low power battery operated data collector and transmitter and/or event detector.Available from Wicked Device.
This design makes it very easy to simply add up to 4 sensors – analog or digital – just by soldering them onto the pads. Here is a Futurlec gas sensor howto. There are four modes:
1. Sensor values are transmitted hourly (every 10 mintues*)
2. Sensor value are transmitted every 10 minutes (once a minute*). Both these modes are suitable for environmental data (temperature, etc).
3. Sensor values are transmitted every 10 seconds. This is primarily a test mode, or for sample data.
4. Whenever an event is detected, it is transmitted. This is the most power efficient mode, ideal for collecting event based data.
* the latest software removed the one hour interval mode in favor of a one minute interval mode
The chip sleeps most of the time and only wakes up to transmit or when it detects an edge on its digital sensor. When used with passive sensors it is highly power efficient. You can set a node ID at run time, allowing you to have several sensors all transmitting to one base station.
The sensor can remember its mode and ID through a reset, in case one occurs unexpectedly in the field.
The Node is specifically designed to work with the Receiver Shield, giving you a one way radio link for under $25 total.