Thursday, August 16, 2012

Panasonic's long range PIR motion sensors are frugal with their energy

Passive infrared sensors (PIRs) are commonly used for motion detection in applications like burglar alarms,  automatic lighting fixtures and more recently in occupancy detection. 


Panasonic's "PaPIRs" line of  PIR sensors are small in size and have a detection range of 12m and a wide detection angle. However what makes them interesting is that they consume as low as 1.6uA of current from 3.3V whilst actively detecting any motion. This means that a single coin cell could theoretically power the sensor for a ridiculous 15 years. They're also extremely easy to use as the only output is a single digital line indicating detected motion. We can imagine these being used up in some wireless motion sensing applications where battery life is crucial.
Panasonic doesn't mention pricing details, but they are available from for example Digikey with prices around 20USD for single pieces of the lowest power model. 





More: Panasonic PaPIRs

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