From development in the laboratory to deployment in the home: Trouble and strife with sensor networks

This paper examines the process of customizing Particle sensors for use in a home energy monitoring project. Our developments affected sensor hardware, sensor software and data capture. The developed sensors have been deployed in two homes in the UK. We examine the issues in using 3rd party toolkits to undertake research and suggest design and process enhancements to better assist with the deployment of sensors in homes.