Experimental Characterization of a Low Power Device for IoT Applications: micro.sp

The paper investigates the transmission characteristics of a low power device, named micro.sp, patented by STE Industries, to be used for Internet of Things (IoT) applications where battery duration is a critical aspect and the transmitted information is organized in messages composed by a limited number of bits. The technical characteristics of micro.sp are compared with those of Bluetooth low energy (BLE) devices, which appears as the main competing short range wireless technology. Experimental results show that micro.sp can be considered an enabling technology for the implementation of very low consumption short-range devices (according to ETSI definition). To give some examples, measurements have revealed that assuming to transmit few bytes every 30 seconds, a micro.sp device can work for more than 30 years with the same coin battery, more than double the time of the BLE devices.