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Phoenix666 writes:

Running on Rays of Light and Off-the-Shelf Hardware

We have previously looked at how to make a wireless device live for years on one tiny coin cell battery. This time we up the game and make it live forever, using solar power and off-the-shelf hardware.

We build a prototype of our device and go through the technical details involved in designing for solar power. We use off-the-shelf hardware running the latest version of the Thingsquare ultra low-power software. Light does not provide a lot of power, so we need software that can make the most of it.

[...] There are many situations in which we would like a wireless network that lasts forever:

• Large-scale vineyard monitoring: keeping track of the vines that make up fine wines
• Checking up on those organic crops: believe it or not, agriculture is all about data
• Big city life: cities have parking spaces, trash cans, bus stops, trains and other urban necessities that need to be kept track of
• The great outdoors: knowing where cattle and livestock live their lives means farmers can save money

Sounds like a great project.

Original Submission