Every sensor and smart device you own, on one console.

What is a sensor?

A sensor is a small device that measures something in the physical world, such as temperature, moisture, light, motion, pressure or the presence of water, and turns it into a signal a machine can read. A thermometer is a sensor. So is the part of a phone that notices you turned it sideways.

On its own a sensor only measures. It becomes useful when its readings are stored, drawn on a chart, compared over time, or used to send an alert. The types people connect most often are temperature and humidity, soil moisture, air quality, water leak, power and energy, motion, light, noise and pressure sensors.

What is a smart device or IoT device?

A smart device is an everyday object with one or more sensors, a small computer and a network connection, so it can send its readings online and often be controlled from far away. The Internet of Things, or IoT, is the name for all such connected devices together. A Wi-Fi soil probe, a smart plug and a solar inverter that reports to an app are all IoT devices.

The difference is simple. A sensor measures. A smart device measures and communicates, usually over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, Thread, LoRaWAN or a mobile network. Most smart devices contain several sensors, even when the product is sold for a single job.

How many sensors and smart devices are there in the world?

IoT Analytics estimates about 21 billion connected IoT devices worldwide at the end of 2025, up around 14 percent in one year, and forecasts about 39 billion by 2030.¹

Those numbers count connected devices only. Each of them holds at least one sensor and many hold several, so the number of sensors is higher still. A modern smartphone alone contains more than a dozen, from motion and light to pressure and location. Research firms define a connected device differently, so treat any single figure as an estimate and not an exact count.

Why are sensors important?

Sensors tell you what is happening in a place you are not, and they let you notice a problem before it becomes expensive. They turn guesses into measurements.

• At home: a leak sensor under a sink can save a floor, and a temperature sensor in an empty house shows a failed heater in time.
• In the garden and on the farm: soil moisture readings show when to water, which saves water and plants.
• With energy: solar and power readings show what you make and what you use.
• In the air you breathe: air quality monitors show particle and gas levels indoors and outdoors.
• In business and cities: sensors watch cold storage, buildings, traffic and water networks.

Guides: monitor soil moisture remotely, get water leak alerts on your phone, monitor a greenhouse remotely.

The problem: every brand has its own app

Most sensors ship with their own app and their own account. Buy from four brands and you end up with four apps, four logins and four different charts, and no easy way to compare a greenhouse reading with the weather outside at the same hour.

SensorConsole is built to remove that problem. You connect each device once, whatever brand made it, and every reading appears on one dashboard. You get history charts with the daily lowest and highest values, alerts by email when a value crosses a limit or a leak is detected, CSV and JSON export, and a choice per device: keep it private, share it by link, or put it on the public map. It is free to start.

See which brands work, how each one connects, or read how to see all your sensors in one place.

Connect your first sensor

Where is the sensor industry heading?

Toward many more devices that are cheaper, use less power and follow shared standards, so that people can mix brands without being locked in.

• More devices at lower cost. Forecasts point to roughly 39 billion connected devices by 2030, helped by sensors that are smaller and cheaper, and some that run for years on a small battery.
• Common standards. Matter for smart home devices and LoRaWAN for low power, long range sensors make it easier for products from different makers to work together.
• Devices that do more themselves. Instead of streaming every second, a device can check its own readings and send a summary or an alert.
• Data you control. More people expect to keep their readings in a place they choose, and not inside one company's app.

That is the direction SensorConsole is built for: standard ways to send data in, such as the Weather Underground upload protocol and a plain web request, so that a shop-bought sensor and a home-built board can sit side by side. For the technical side, read how sensors send data and what MQTT is.

Quick questions

Is SensorConsole free?

Yes. It is free to start.

Which brands and devices work?

Ecowitt, Bresser, PurpleAir, Govee, Netatmo, Airthings, SolarEdge, Shelly, Rachio, SensorPush, Home Assistant, ESPHome and more. The full list is on the brands page.

Do I need a hub or my own server?

No. Cloud connected brands link with your existing account. Other devices send their readings straight to SensorConsole from their own settings or code.

Can I connect a home-built Arduino or ESP32 sensor?

Yes. A device can send readings with a simple web request. See send ESP32 sensor data to a website.

Who can see my readings?

You choose per device whether it stays private, has a share link, or appears on the public map.

I own a full weather station. Is this the right place?

For complete personal weather stations, use our sister site vweatherstation.com/pws. SensorConsole is for individual sensors and smart devices.