Wireless Technology Catch here Connecting the right components


New electronic components for the connected home are reported about almost every day. The market is barely manageable. Many ideal components go unnoticed, reports the distributor Heilind, giving an insight into the trends and what is important when selecting sensors, connectors, switches, cabling and accessories for the increasingly connected smart home


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E Connectivity has announced a ready-to-connect PCB assembly with four sensors for motion, light, temperature, and humidity – expandable to include sensors for CO2, sound and volatile organic compounds (VOC). Would the use of such a multi-sensor make sense for connected (smart) buildings or for building automation?


Trends around the connected home Dalibor Bacic, Product Manager for Sensor Technology at the distributor Heilind, cites TE Connectivity’s AmbiMate sensor module MS4 as one example of a large number of new developments. “The sensors are becoming smaller, more powerful, and smarter. Sensor modules or a multi-sensor allow several sensors to be used simultaneously. If space saving and cost reduction are the primary concerns, compromises in measurement accuracy can be accepted.”


improved significantly. Various solutions such as light sensors are increasingly being integrated into ready-made solution packages, to automate the room’s lighting, blinds, windows, heating and air ventilation. Further examples of intelligent sensors that trigger automated functions in a process chain are HTU21P and Anisotropic Magneto-Resistive (AMR) switch sensors from Tyco Electronics Sensor Solutions.


HTU21P is a new humidity and temperature sensor that provides an analog signal in pulse width modulated (PWM) format. HTU21P sensors are dedicated humidity and temperature plug and play transducers for OEM applications with a humidity operating range of 0 – 100%RH and operating temperature range of -40 – 125°C [ -40 – 257°F]. These low power sensors with current consumption of 0.014 mA and supply voltage of 3.8 V are designed for high volume and cost sensitive applications such as room ventilation control with tight space constraints.


for assemblies and housings for the connected home. The range of the smallest electromechanical components such as miniature connectors, battery or nano-SIM card holders is huge,” says Stefan Schumacher, Team Leader Product Management at Heilind.


For the connected home, he cites Molex FFC/FPC connectors, HDMI connectors and cable assemblies, USB-C and micro-USB connectors, fine-pitch SMT board-to-board connectors, wire-to-wire and wire-to- board connectors, high-density connector systems, micro-SD/combo memory card connectors as well as SIM and SIM/SD combo connectors.


Molex’s FFC(Flexible Flat Cable) / FPC(Flexible Printed Circuit) connectors offer an extensive choice concerning the best combination of signal reliability, compactness, wide circuit size range, and cable style. Molex SlimStack board-to- board connectors are available in a variety pitch sizes from 0.35 to 2 mm, and heights of 0.6 – 20 mm.


Molex SIM and combo card connectors offer the end-user protection features in a compact design for mobile devices using GSM, GPRS, SMS, and MMS technologies. Keystone offers its Battery holder 1066 according to UL 94V-0. It keeps battery safe in shock and vibration applications with an operating temperature range of -50 - 146 ° C (60 - 293 ° F).


AmbiMate sensor module MS4 TE Connectivity’s AmbiMate sensor module MS4 with four sensors for motion, light, temperature and humidity. (Source: TE Connectivity)


A team of product managers at Heilind advises customers on the selection of suitable electronic components. Heilind is one of the world’s leading distributors of connectors, sensors, relays, switches as well as production materials and consumables.


Intelligent sensors for automated processes


Dalibor points out that the range of components for automated processes has


www.cieonline.co.uk


HTU21P miniature temperature humidity sensor from Tyco Electronics Sensor Solutions (Source: Tyco Electronics Sensor Solutions)


AMR sensors are precise and contact-less devices with operating temperature range of -40 – 125°C [ -40 – 257°F]. It measures the changes in the angle of a magnetic field as seen by the sensor providing an analog output signal.


Miniaturisation is a continuing trend


Due to the large supply of components, size is increasingly the decisive factor. “Miniaturisation is a continuing trend


performance of the wireless connection in terms of speed and security has allowed the development of many protocols used in many IoT applications for the smart home. Different concepts can be available with WLAN, Bluetooth and LTE. “Low- power solutions (LPWA, Low Power Wide Area) such as NB-IoT (NarrowBand-loT) or LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) also come into play when only a small amount of data is to be transmitted over long distances,” explains Dalibor Bacic. “When integrating radio antennas into your own products, possible restrictions should also be taken into account. These include the positioning on the board, the choice of materials for the housing or the proximity to possible sources of interference. After all, every wireless solution also requires appropriate IT security. Designing radio solutions has been very well researched and we have access to the manufacturers’ studies,” says Dalibor.


The Molex ultra-wideband PCB antennas are solutions that offer efficient transmission with an independent design in order to reduce implementation costs. The 146184 series, with a temperature operating range of -30 - 85 ° C, offers total efficiency values of 70% from 3.0 GHz to 6.0 GHz with an Input impedance of 50 Ohm and with cable length options of 50, 100, 150 , 200, 250 and 300mm. heilind.de


Battery holder 1066 from Keystone (Source: Keystone)


Wired or wireless solution? When it comes to the question of whether the components for the connected home should be connected by wire or wireless, the decision is increasingly in favour of wireless solutions. The increasing


Molex 146184 series of ultra- broadband dual-band antennas with cable length options of 50, 100, 150, 200, 250 und 300mm (Source: Molex)


Components in Electronics July/August 2020 41


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