Free field guide · 15 pages · PDF

The UK Buyer's Guide to Industrial IoT Sensors

How to choose a sensing approach, size a gateway, pick the right sensor for the measurement, and get a network live without repeating the mistakes everyone else made first. Written by the engineers who specify this kit, for the people who have to make it work.

  • LoRaWAN against cellular against wired, with the numbers
  • EU868 range, penetration and honest battery life
  • ToF against stereo vision against PIR, including the privacy question
  • An appendix of real part numbers at real UK prices

Get the guide No cost, no obligation, no sales pitch.

What is in the IoT sensor buyer’s guide

Fifteen pages, ten chapters, no sales pitch. It is written for people who have to specify industrial IoT sensors for a real building, site or network and who would rather not discover the problems on site with the client watching. Every figure in it is a working figure rather than a datasheet headline, and the appendix commits to real part numbers at real UK prices.

  • 01Choosing a sensing approachLoRaWAN, cellular and wired compared on payload, power, running cost and latency. The twenty-device rule that decides most projects.
  • 02RF realityWhy EU868 is the only correct band in the UK, what the 1 per cent duty cycle really costs you, honest range figures by environment, and how to model battery life properly.
  • 03Choosing a gatewayEight channels or sixteen. Indoor, semi-industrial, outdoor or solar. Backhaul and failover. A coverage plan you can complete in one afternoon, with the RSSI and SNR targets to hit.
  • 04Occupancy and people countingTime of flight against stereo vision against PIR: what each one can actually answer, how accurate it is, and which one keeps you out of a UK GDPR conversation.
  • 05Air quality and CO2NDIR against eCO2, and why specifying the wrong one puts a number in a compliance report that was never a measurement. Placement and calibration drift.
  • 06Leak, level, temperature and energySpot against rope against membrane leak detection. Ultrasonic against radar. Why an air sensor in a fridge answers the wrong question, and how to size a current transformer.
  • 07Network and integrationPrivate LoRaWAN, ChirpStack and The Things Network compared honestly. MQTT, HTTP, Modbus TCP and BACnet/IP, and the payload decoder that quietly eats two days.
  • 08Deployment checklistSurvey to handover in the order that works. Printable, and written so a stranger could follow it.
  • 09Twelve mistakes we keep seeingEach one has cost somebody a site visit, a re-order or a difficult conversation with a client.
  • 10Appendix: what we stockGateways, occupancy sensors, air quality, leak and level, temperature, energy and PoE switches, with live UK prices.

Who it is for

It assumes you are technically competent and short of time. It does not assume you have ever deployed a LoRaWAN network before.

  • System integrators specifying sensing hardware for a client
  • Facilities and estates managers with a building to instrument
  • M&E consultants writing an IoT section into a spec
  • Water, utility and infrastructure engineers
  • Property teams who need utilisation data they can defend
  • Anyone who has been quoted for a sensor and wants a second opinion

What this guide is not. It is not a brochure. There are no case studies, no logos and no invitation to a webinar. The last two pages list hardware we sell, because a buyer’s guide that will not commit to a part number is not a guide, but you can throw those pages away and the other thirteen still work.

We will email you the download link, and nothing else unless you tick the box asking us to.

A sample of what is inside

The band mistake that kills a whole order

Hardware sold for the American market is 915 MHz. It will never join a UK EU868 gateway and it is not lawful to operate here. A Milesight sensor ending -868M is the European variant; one ending -915M is not. It is the single most common ordering error we see, and it usually traces back to a marketplace listing that did not distinguish the region.

The CO2 question most tenders never ask

A true CO2 sensor uses NDIR and measures carbon dioxide directly. An eCO2 sensor measures volatile organic compounds and estimates what the CO2 probably is, on the assumption that the only thing changing the air is people breathing. Open a bottle of cleaning product near one and it will report a hazardous level in an empty room. If the reading drives ventilation or appears in a report, insist on NDIR in writing.

Battery life, honestly

Vendor figures assume a best-case spreading factor, a long reporting interval and 20 °C. As a working model, halve the datasheet figure and then adjust for how often the device reports, how good its link is, and how cold it will get. A sensor at the edge of coverage can use several times the energy of an identical sensor next to the gateway, which makes coverage a battery-life decision rather than just a connectivity one.

Questions people ask before downloading

Is it actually free, and will you sell my details?

It is free and there is nothing to pay, ever. We do not sell or share your details with anyone. We use your email to send you the guide, and we will only send you anything else if you tick the optional consent box on the form. If you leave the box unticked, you still get the guide.

Will a salesperson phone me?

No. Nobody will chase you about the download. If you want to talk to an engineer, the number is 023 9223 3611 and the choice is yours.

Is it vendor-neutral?

The engineering chapters are. The physics of 868 MHz, the difference between NDIR and eCO2, and the case for radar over ultrasonic do not change with the badge on the box. We are an authorised Milesight distributor, so the appendix lists what we stock and what it costs. That part is clearly marked as an appendix for exactly that reason.

Is this for LoRaWAN only?

No. Chapter one is specifically about choosing between LoRaWAN, cellular and wired or PoE, and it says plainly where LoRaWAN is the wrong answer. Most real sites end up hybrid, and the guide covers PoE switching and cellular backhaul as well.

How current are the prices in the appendix?

They are live UK prices excluding VAT, taken from our catalogue at the date of publication. Stock levels and current pricing are always on the product pages, so treat the appendix as a sense-check on budget rather than a quotation.

Can I share it with my team?

Yes. Print it, circulate it, put it in a project folder. That is what it is for.

We would rather you bought the right thing.

Indiott is the IoT arm of PSI Technologies Limited, trading since 1998, and an authorised Milesight distributor. We hold stock in the UK, we answer the phone, and we will tell you when the thing you are about to specify is the wrong thing.

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