Start from the decision
Sensor projects fail when they begin with the technology. The question is not what could we measure, but what decision would change if we knew something we do not currently know.
Temperature in a cold store, whether a machine is running, whether a tank is full, whether a door was opened. Each has an action attached, which is what makes it worth measuring.
Buy the hardware, build the value
Off-the-shelf sensors with standard connectivity cover most requirements and cost a fraction of bespoke hardware. Custom devices are a specialist manufacturing project and rarely justified at small scale.
The value in a small sensor project is almost never in the device. It is in the alerting, the integration with your operational systems, and the record it produces for compliance or dispute.
Connectivity, practically
- Wifi where it exists and is reliable — cheapest, least robust in industrial settings
- Cellular for remote or mobile assets, with a per-device data cost
- Long-range low-power for many low-bandwidth sensors across a site
- Wired where possible for anything critical — unglamorous and dependable
Get alerting right before analysis
The first version should do one thing: tell the right person when a threshold is crossed. Dashboards and trend analysis come later.
An alert that reaches someone who acts is worth more than a year of historical graphs nobody opens, and it is what justifies the second phase.
Plan for the boring failures
- Batteries die — monitor battery level and alert before it fails
- Sensors drift — plan calibration
- Connectivity drops — buffer locally and forward when it returns
- A sensor that stops reporting must alert; silence is a failure mode, not a good sign
That last point is the one most often missed. A missing reading looks like nothing rather than like a problem.
What it costs
A first project with a handful of sensors, connectivity, alerting and integration typically runs £8,000–£25,000 including hardware. Running costs are modest but real: connectivity, hosting and battery replacement.