The Lifecycle of a Customized Sensor in the May Monnit News Briefs

Monnit News Briefs May 2025

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The Transformative Lifecycle of a Monnit Custom Sensor

Let's take a moment to explore the creation and lifecycle of a Monnit Custom Sensor. Most of the 80+ Monnit IoT Sensors align with our customers' needs to measure their specific use cases or industry applications.

However, their use case is sometimes unique enough that they want our innovative employees in Monnit Labs to use our versatile Internet of Things (IoT) smart sensing platform to develop a customized solution. Many new sensor ideas have emerged after our customers have used our existing sensors.

Some specialized sensors have also proven valuable to many customers. We also customize gateways, accessories, and cloud software for our customers and partners. The value of our custom products lies in the data that helps customers optimize operations, predict maintenance, and prevent problems.

Typically, a need for custom development turns into a request to create a new single or multisensor product or to take an existing sensor and customize its edge data conversion. Here is a high-level overview of our production process and a custom sensor's lifecycle.

Research Phase: We assess development complexities and costs.
Agreement Phase: Our Monnit Development Agreement (MDA) details the scope and post-development plan.
Development Phase: After the MDA signing, the actual work starts to engineer, test, and brand the custom sensor.
Manufacturing Phase: Our team builds the production order according to specifications and schedule.
Fulfillment Phase: The team ships the sensors with custom/private labels, kitting, and marketing.
Installation Phase: A customer can configure and install most custom sensors within 15 minutes.
Operation Phase: On average, a custom sensor and battery can last up to 10 years. In environmentally stressed areas, sensors will last 4 to 5 years. Batteries in frequent-assessment sensors may last up to 2 to 3 years.

A few of our favorite examples of Monnit Custom Sensors include:

Multisensor—We combined six sensors into one for monitoring industrial soot blowers. Soot blowers are essential for maintaining highly efficient industrial boilers, utilizing high-pressure air or steam to remove soot from the interior walls of a boiler's heating surfaces. The Soot Blower Multisensor features interoperability with a:

ALTA® 500 PSIG Pressure Meter
ALTA Three-Phase Current Meter
ALTA Thermocouple Sensor
ALTA Activity Sensor
Microphone
ALTA Voltage Meter

Single Sensor—A customer asked Monnit to add the Apogee^® Instruments Full-Spectrum Quantum Transducer to the ALTA Wireless IoT Sensor Platform. We developed the ALTA Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) Light Meter to measure the specific wavelengths of light required for plant photosynthesis.
Edge Data Conversion—We developed the ALTA Tilt Detection Sensor for an agricultural customer after they wanted our ALTA Tilt Sensor to notify them when a fence falls. Our enhancements and new sensor enable them to detect when a fence post or section is pushed over by the wind or anything else instead of just the tilt or pitch and roll at various intervals.

Our partners in the IoTvantage™ Partner Program have experienced transformative value through additional revenue streams from the IoT by collaborating with us to develop custom sensors that meet their customers' unique needs.

We invite you to consider what Monnit Labs could customize for you today. It all starts with a quick, complimentary consultation with one of our IoT experts.

Visit Monnit Labs Today

Tech News

Monnit IoT Cloud Computing Platform Wins Product of the Year

Our IoT Cloud Monitoring Platform offers a unique combination of hardware and software designed to help you efficiently collect, securely transmit, and swiftly respond to IoT sensor data.

Cloud Computing Magazine recently reviewed the platform for the first time and awarded us its Product of the Year Award. The Cloud Computing Product of the Year Awards honor vendors with the most innovative, helpful, and beneficial cloud products and services.

We’re committed to developing leading remote monitoring solutions that operate on a secure IoT platform for sensor data communication. Our wireless, Wi-Fi, cellular, and Power over Ethernet (PoE) sensor connectivity enables simple setup and straightforward 24/7 management in the cloud.

It’s exciting to hear that “The Monnit IoT Cloud Monitoring Platform stands out as a truly innovative solution.” We consider the recognition valuable credibility and motivation to keep providing you with our best IoT platform.

More About Why We Won

On Repeat: Three More Best of State Awards

We thought winning three Best of State Awards was a big deal last year. But to do it again in 2025 is an unexpected but significant honor for us.

The Best of State Awards help deliver on our quest to help our Utah business community achieve operational success by deploying our IoT smart sensing solutions. Once again, we feel recognized and respected by local business technology experts in the key categories where we contend.

Utah is known for its constantly growing ability to foster economic success for businesses—from startups to well-established legacy ventures. So, we’re excited about these meaningful awards in our competitive business climate. Here’s what we won again:

Science & Technology: Hardware/Firmware Development
Production & Manufacturing: Hardware
Science & Technology: Laboratory Equipment & Supplies

Thank you again, Best of State, for rewarding us because we excel in our endeavors, use innovative methods, and contribute to a better quality of life here in this great state. Read what our Founder and CEO, Brad Walters, had to say about the awards.

Get the Award Announcement

Trade Show Meetings

Schedule a Meeting w/ Monnit at a Trade Show

Realcomm/IBcon June 3–4

See us in booth 2525 at the Savannah Convention Center in Savannah, GA, where we’ll show you our versatile smart sensing solutions for real estate asset monitoring.

Book Now

Sensors Converge June 24–26

We’ll be at North America’s largest electronics event for design engineers in the Santa Clara, CA Convention Center, demonstrating the Monnit IoT Monitoring Platform.

Book Now

CX Shoutout

Tech Tip

Two Tips: How to Quickly See Sensor Status and Update Gateway Firmware

We have two reminders for you with this month’s Tech Tip. First, we’ll show you how to know the status of a sensor at a glance in iMonnit. Second, we have a description and link to a short video presenting how to update your gateway’s firmware.

Review a Sensor’s Status

Click on Sensors on the left main menu. On each sensor card, you’ll see:

The status bar indicates green for good, the dynamic signal strength icon, the battery level, the date and time of the last report, and key data points.
The vertical kebab or three-dot menu lets you quickly dive into a sensor’s Details, Readings, Rules, Settings, Move, and Delete options.
A heart icon says that you’ve marked this sensor as a favorite.

Choose a sensor to review by clicking on the left status bar of the sensor’s card.
The sensor card now displays more sensor status details and links to the Current Rules and Create another Rule options.

Update a Gateway’s Firmware

Updating your ALTA^® or ALTA XL^® Gateways’ firmware is paramount to prevent security and performance problems. You should update the firmware if you see a download arrow icon next to Gateways in the left iMonnit sidebar menu.

Periodic firmware updates will improve the functionality and features of your gateways and help our iMonnit maintenance procedures run smoothly.

Here’s a video and Monnit Knowledgebase article to help you update one or more gateways in five steps.

See Video and Article