Hi, I also think that either the TelosB or the Iris motes would be the best choice. I think they are the most commonly used ones, probably best supported and they seem to have the biggest community. The MicaZ is the predecessor of the Iris mote, so I would go with the newer version.
The Iris mote has a slightly higher transmission power and the microcontroller is a bit more advanced. The advantage of the Mica-family (including the Iris) motes is that they have a standard interface for which many different sensor boards exist and the antenna is external, meaning that you can connect a better antenna (to be bought separately) without soldering. The Iris motes also have a battery connector that allows you to connect your own power supply without needing to solder anything (in that case you might want to cut off the local battery pack). The disadvantage of the Iris mote is mainly the need for external sensor boards (you cannot do much with the mote without it, except to blink some LEDs), and the need for an external programming board. The TelosB motes is a slightly older design, that is open (you get the schematics of the motes). You can connect your own sensors or sensor boards to the telosb motes, but you'll have to solder them on. There also exist a couple of external sensor boards that you can buy, but I guess they are a bit more difficult to get. You can also attach an external antenna, but you need to resolder some components, and this can be quite tricky. The TelosB mote has a 16-bit microcontroller (Iris 8-bit), and the microcontroller is designed for low-power (especially useful when active, i.e., when calculating something). The big advantage of the TelosB motes is that they can directly be plugged into the computer and programmed over USB (I speak from experience, if you have to reprogram your motes very often, or you have a lot of motes, the USB port is extremely useful). Each TelosB node has a unique USB ID, so you could even write a program that detects the insertion of a new mote, looks it up in a database and decides on an action (e.g., to program a specific image to this mote). If you get the TelosB type of motes, I recommend you get them with the on-board sensors (not included with the default motes). The MicaZ, Iris and TelosB motes can all communicate with each other, as they use the physical layer of IEEE 802.15.4. If you need to make a custom product (connect an external antenna, use a special power supply (e.g., solar panels), make your own special sensors), or if you have already experience/equipment with/from the Mica-family of motes, then I recommend the Iris motes. If you just want to experiment with sensor networks and humidity/temperature/light is good enough for you, or if you need to perform extensive calculations and need very low power consumption, I recommend TelosB. If you consider TelosB motes, you might also want to look at the Zolteria Z1 (I have no experience with this mote, but it looks extremely nice on the web page): http://www.zolertia.com/ If you need a mote that can communicate over long distances, you might want to have a look at the TinyNodes: http://www.tinynode.com/ Cheers, Urs _______________________________________________ Tinyos-help mailing list [email protected] https://www.millennium.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tinyos-help
