Senseful Sensors: Learnings and Optimizations for IoT Sensors in HCI Research

This paper reports learnings and optimizations for the use of simple connected IoT sensors in human-computer interaction research. Starting from requirements for such sensors, i.e. for workshops with people and the use in their homes, we introduce the TI SensorTag devices. It turned out that while these devices were promising, they were not suitable for long deployments, as the coin cell battery life of only two days was not sufficient. We present energy traces of the devices. First the status quo and then with modified firmware and software to allow more suitable sensor parametrization while avoiding pitfalls of Bluetooth Low Energy. We finally managed to create a system for senseful sensing: versatile, responsive, energy efficient, and deployable for weeks on a small coin cell.