Why Go Wireless: Benefits and Challenges of Wireless Remote Monitoring

Significant time and money has been invested in researching the use of wireless technology for remote monitoring. Yet significant wireless deployments are just beginning to materialize in industry. There are many advantages to eliminating cables in remote monitoring applications, but there are also many challenges. As standards such as Wi-Fi and ZigBee continue to mature for use in wireless sensor networks, those challenges are being addressed. This paper discusses how wireless technology has evolved and considerations for designing wireless remote monitoring applications.