Thursday, January 25, 2007

Wireless correction I had an inaccuracy or misunderstanding about the Honeywell sensor products in my news item on Automation World regarding the Emerson European product launch. Where I stated that Honeywell preferred a wired sensor approach, it in fact also uses battery-powered wireless radio sensors. The negativity I heard from its engineers about batteries was apparently only directed at the way that Dust Networks implements the sensor networks (supplier to Emerson) not to batteries themselves. Honeywell feels that its batteries will last longer because the radios in its sensors do not have to carry the burden of the mesh. That is done at the next level up the architecture by gateways that are wired for power. Emerson says its batteries will last "long enough." Since we are going to have two wireless implementations on the market (at least), I bet that this difference of engineering opinion will be settled by engineers evaluating their applications and choosing what looks to be best. Yes, I'm thinking that SP100 will not play referee and declare one knocked out. I could be wrong since both sides are lobbying for votes. But I don't see how they can tell one or the other (and this means several companies, not just the two) to stop their product development and bow to the other. 5:42:50 PM    comment []