Next Verticals: Eight Industries Where a Database on the Sensor Could Fit

The three case studies share one pattern. A device keeps its own data, decides for itself and talks over a link that is slow, costly or often down. Its gateway receives the same records the device wrote, so nobody has to maintain code that translates between the two. Machine monitoring, cold chain and agriculture came first because the Alpha demo covers them.

The pattern turns up in many more industries. None of the eight below has been tested, and none has a device in the Beta. This post sets out what each would ask of the engine, what already carries over from the demo, and what would be new work. It is a map for choosing what to try after the Beta, ideally together with people who build these devices.

Eight industries with the same pattern as the demo devices. None of them has been tested.

What They Would Share

• More autonomy. A meter, a pump or a drone keeps working and deciding when its link drops.
• Less bandwidth. Summaries and events go upstream. The full detail can follow when a cheap link is at hand.
• Local decisions. Alarms, limits and controls run on the device’s own records.
• No translator. The gateway keeps the records exactly as the device wrote them.

Energy and Utilities

Smart meters, grid sensors, solar inverters, home batteries.

A meter records consumption at fixed intervals, and the bill is based on those readings, so none may be lost before the utility collects them. It also logs events such as tampering and power outages. Its link is often a low-power radio or the power line itself, and either carries little.

• Carries over: the soil sensor’s small daily messages over a tight radio, and the cold-chain logger’s records that stay exact.
• New work: secure sync before anything that affects a bill, months of interval data on the device, and flash wear planned over the meter’s working life.

Smart Buildings

HVAC controllers, occupancy and air-quality sensors, access control.

A building controller has to keep heating and ventilation running from its own recent readings when the building network goes down. Facility managers want summaries kept for months or years, to compare one season with the next. Access control keeps a log of which door opened when.

• Carries over: the machine sensor’s rule and fan, and settings read back after a reboot.
• New work: many devices on one gateway, long retention of summaries, and secure sync, which access control cannot do without.

Water and Infrastructure

Leak detectors, pump stations, bridge and tunnel sensors.

These devices often sit where nobody visits for years, on one battery, with a radio link that works now and then. A leak or a pump fault has to raise an alarm on the device at once. Routine readings can wait for the day’s summary.

• Carries over: the soil sensor almost as it is: a small build, a local rule and one tiny message a day.
• New work: energy per reading measured on real boards, which the Beta starts, and battery life planned over years.

Retail and Vending

Refrigerated cases, vending machines, smart shelves.

A refrigerated case follows the same logic as a refrigerated truck: keep the temperature log and record every excursion as evidence. A vending machine also keeps its sales and stock, and syncs over the shop’s Wi-Fi when there is any.

• Carries over: the cold-chain logger’s excursion rule and data layout, nearly unchanged.
• New work: more key-value settings, such as prices and stock levels, and more writes per day.

Vehicles and Fleets

Trucks, EV chargers, rail and marine assets.

A vehicle crosses coverage gaps many times a day and has to keep its event log whole through each of them. Its data rates can be far higher than a temperature logger’s, and fleet operators want audit trails they can check.

• Carries over: the cold-chain logger’s way of keeping everything on board and syncing at depots.
• New work: higher write rates, and several gateways per device, one at each depot.

Drones and Robotics

Flight logs, mission data, robot state.

A drone may fly with no connection at all, and it can lose power in a hard landing, sometimes in the middle of a write. Its logs have to survive and sync once it lands or docks. Robots write state and sensor streams without pause.

• Carries over: power-cut safety, and the full read-out at the dock.
• New work: write rates far above one reading a second, which puts flash wear first on the list (the machine sensor’s lesson), and locking for firmware in which several tasks share the database.

Healthcare and Wearables

Patient monitors, lab instruments, wearables.

Medical devices keep audit trails and calibration data for years, and their software has to be developed and documented under standards such as IEC 62304. Wearables live on budgets of battery and memory as tight as the soil sensor’s.

• Carries over: records that stay exact, and sequence numbers that make gaps in an audit trail easy to find.
• New work: certification, long-term support and security. Of the eight, this is the furthest from where the project stands today.

Consumer and Smart Home

Appliances, thermostats, locks.

These products use the cheapest chip that will do the job, in very large numbers, so every kilobyte counts. Most of them need settings and small logs more than long time-series.

• Carries over: the key-value build, about 7 KB of code on a Cortex-M4.
• New work: many more chips and flash parts, and secure sync, which a door lock cannot do without.

What the Engine Would Need

Most of the new work above is already on the roadmap, because the three demo industries need it too. One item is not.

How a New Industry Would Be Tried

1. A device maker brings a device: its chip and flash, what it measures, what it must decide on its own, and how it connects.
2. A short set-up file describes that device. The Beta builds the generator that turns such a file into a build, and it records how long a new device takes to set up. The target is days.
3. The device runs on its own hardware, with the power-cut rig cutting its power while it writes.
4. The results are published, as the Alpha’s were, and the set-up joins the examples.

Which Come First

The industries closest to the demo are the natural first candidates. Retail refrigeration could reuse the cold-chain rules almost as they are, and water sensors the soil sensor’s build. Healthcare comes last, because certification is a project of its own. Nothing here is scheduled yet: the Beta’s three devices come first.

If you build devices in one of these industries, or in one that is missing from the list, the project would like to hear what your device keeps, decides and sends. See Contact.

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