Understanding Battery Performance Options

iMatrix Sensors have several parameters that control how often they check and report the values of their sensors. For battery-powered sensors, the process of reviewing and writing sensor data takes battery energy. The user can control how the iMatrix sensors operate by adjusting the parameters used during these processes. Most of the time, a sensor is sleeping and conserving battery power.

Periodically the device wakes up to check on the readings of its sensors. This time is called the “Polling Time”. When the device reads the value, it automatically checks to see if it exceeds any notification levels. If it does, then the device immediately sends a notification. If the levels are fine, then it just goes back to sleep.

Periodically the device wakes and saves the readings of its sensors. This time is called the “Sample Time”. When the device reads the value, it saves the readings to internal memory. At the same time, it also automatically checks to see if it exceeds any of the notification levels. If it does, then the device immediately sends a notification. If the levels are acceptable, then it goes back to sleep.

Finally, the Check-in Time is when the device notifies its Gateway to send the stored data to the iMatrix Cloud. Saving up these readings and sending them in a block helps save battery energy and reduces the overall number of packets sent to the iMatrix Servers. Reducing the total number of data packets can help save on costs for communication links running over metered data connections like 4G and 5G.

When editing the configuration for a device, the basic settings allow the user to choose a “Battery Performance” level between 1 and 5, with 1 being the best battery performance and 5 being the most responsive sensor performance. In the advanced settings, the user can fine-tune these values depending on their needs. The following table shows the values used for levels 1 through 5.

As a note sensors operating in a mesh network ignore the check-in interval and automatically send data to the Mesh Gateways based on available communication loads.