Getting Hobos to Talk to You: a wireless extension to hobo dataloggers

Author(s): Hicks, John; Ramanathan, Nithya; Schoellhammer, Tom | Abstract: Onset Computer Corporation is a vendor of battery-powered data loggers allowing accurate, reliable, and affordable environmental sensing. These loggers provide high quality data and have been in use for almost a decade. Consequently, industry support for their sensor interface allows ease of use and a wide choice of sensors that is always growing. By adding wireless communication capabilities this robust sensing platform gains interactivity. Researchers have real time access to data as well as the ability to detect problems or faulty sensors immediately. We have implemented a system to integrate a hobo data logger into our mote based networking stack. This includes software for the mote that enables communication with the hobo logger over its proprietary serial protocol. The seamless marriage of well developed tools familiar to biologists with the convenience of wireless networking provides a robust scientific tool that is easy to deploy and use.