We are proud to announce, that we have released our latest sensor development for our smart waste product - the Oscar! The new sensor is providing all the features of his bigger brother at a much smaller footprint - it is the worlds smallest smart waste sensor to date, thereby unlocking new potential applications.
Development startet in early 2022
We started the development in early 2022, utilizing all the knwoledge we have gained from our earlier designs. Main development goals were reducing size, further reducing energy consumption and thus keeping a decent battery life. Furthermore, we focused on having all components equipped on the PCB, making serial production swift and easy. Everything from PCB design up to the embedded software running on the sensor is being developed inhouse. That way, we can make sure that the design fits perfectly to the use case of our customers.
Regarding main components of the sensor like modem, antenna or optical sensor, we rely on strong partners and utilize their expert knowledge when it comes to integrating their components into our prodcut. We developed closely together with the experts at Nordic Semiconductors and Ignion to come up with the best possible design in regards to connectivity quality and battery life. Check out Nordics Customer success story of our fruitful collaboration here.
We have also partnered up with Memfault, who are providing very valuable insights from our sensor software in the field. That way, we can analyse the behaviour of our new product deployments and debug or optimze the performance for our customers from remote. Check our their case study here.
Key features
The sensor provides all the features needed for successful fill level measurement, with only dimensions of 71x43x28mm. It uses our proven optical technology from previous sensors, measuring up to 4m distance with a cone angle of 27°. This results in a measurement area diameter of rougly half the distance.
Excellent connectivity is available through mobile network Narrowband-IoT and LTE-M, also usable in underground container systems with no need for an external antenna, given an average network coverage at the location.
In default configuration, 12 fill level measurements are taken during a day with 3 uplinks of the data to the cloud. In addition, we send data immediately if certain thresholds have been reached. With these settings, we reach 5 years of battery life on average, despite being powered only by a single AA battery.
For more details, check out the datasheet here.
Other applications
Since the Oscar sensor is so small, it can also be used in very small containers like public trash cans and the like. To show its capabilities, we also integrated it in a peanut dispenser, which is very frequently used everytime we visit a fair or event :-)
...and the Oscar goes to:
After having prototyped and tested the Oscar in 2022, it is now being released for serial use. We have already deployed 80 sensors to our customer Betriebsamt Norderstedt, another 100 are being shipped right now to the Abfallwirtschaftsbetrieb Kiel. Next 150 pcs will go to Entsorgungsbetriebe Lübeck very soon. We are looking very much forward to deploying even more in the course of the year.
Did you know?
We are offering our smart waste solution as a monthly subscription, including the sensor hardware, all the features plus we also operate the whole solution for you! That includes monitoring the system from remote and debugging if needed, so you can focus on your core business and always get the data you need. Of course, this also includes monitoring the battery's remaining charge and arranging for replacement as soon as necessary.
Get in touch to learn more:
Book an appointment or call us at +49 40 60060 160
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