The development of the xSensor array has paved way to the concept of a cloud connected IoT sensor, secure and easy to setup and manage. The Sparkfun set of Particle products has been chosen given its availability, cost and wide set of features to allow IoT applications. The Particle Photon, a wifi connected development board and the Particle Electron, a 3G connected variant. The ease of setup of connectivity, security, scalability, makes it an all-in-one solution to integrate on existing sensors of xFarm Tech. The data autonomy makes it possible for cloud solutions to be put in place for data aquisition and logging.
The Particle devices are secure by default and paired with Google VM’s data encryption makes it a viable secure product to roll out into production. The first device to be tested is the xPhoton to be used as a Environment Monitoring for houses or establishments. The xPhoton measures, ambient temperature, barometric pressure, altitude, air resistance (Volatile Organic Compounds), and humidity via a bosch BME680 module. Grove sensors for Air Quality, UV index, and ambient noise is also installed on the xPhoton.
xPhoton breadboard proof of concept 
xPhoton prototype with powershield 
xPhoton prototype testing with battery 
xPhoton prototype design with sensor test 
xPhoton prototype full sensor test 
xPhoton prototype with case 
xPhoton sample unit opened 
xPhoton sample unit 
xPhoton prototype powered by battery and solar cells 
xPhoton prototype visualization
The data the xPhoton can be monitored realtime or via an email alerting using thresholds. Please visit the URL to see a running xPhoton device’s data: http://bit.ly/xPhoton
IF This Then That, IFTTT, can be used to automate tasks with a trigger.
Applications:
- Air quality measurement and monitoring
- Greenhouse monitoring
- Personalized weather station
- Context awareness for any change in environment conditions
- Warning regarding dryness, high temperatures, air quality changes, noise and UV intensity
- Measurement of volume and air flow
- Automation control (e.g. HVAC)
- Altitude tracking