With its recently announced Exo Sense Pi, Sfera Labs s.r.l. provides its answer to this question. It is a multi-sensor module with the Raspberry Pi 4 as its computing core. Offering specialized sensors and interfaces, the system provides easy and versatile integration with wide communication protocols support. Sensors for the Exo Sense Pi include:
- temperature
- humidity
- air quality (VOC)
- light intensity
- microphone for sound intensity monitoring, recording and processing
- passive infrared (PIR) motion sensor
- option for earthquake sensor module
In addition to its processing capabilities and extensive range of sensors, the new Exo Sense Pi offers a variety of memory storage and wireless communication options. Unlike a microcontroller-based system, the Raspberry Pi provides a full operating system.
While Exo Sense Pi is a new product, with a Raspberry Pi as it operational basis, it is a product people already know how to use. Nothing prevents a developer from developing everything from scratch in their own development environment and directly interfacing the sensors using their software. It is not a closed platform. However, software libraries are available from Sfera Labs to speed up the development process.
These solutions are highly effective at addressing industrial, building automation and environment monitoring use cases. A typical use case is in group spaces like technical centers requiring a good level of understanding about the environment: temperature, humidity, air quality (CO and CO2) and more. At the same time, the center requires a control system to let people in. With this system, a single device can perform the environment monitoring and employee access control functions as well.
