Case Study: Sense-W Ultra-Low-Profile Pot Scale

WIRL designed, developed, and manufactured Sense-W, an ultra-thin pot scale that delivers gram-level irrigation insight over LoRa, survives full submersion, and runs for years on a single battery budget.

Platform

Sense-W individual pot scale

The Challenge: Accuracy in Millimeters

Individual pot weight is one of the most direct signals of irrigation need, but commercial scales are bulky, power-hungry, and poorly suited to dense benches where every millimeter of height and every cable run matters. The product had to sit under a pot, survive wash-down and submersion, talk across a large facility, and run for years without battery swaps.

An ultra-thin mechanical envelope left almost no volume for load cells, antenna, battery, and sealing. Design and manufacturability were tightly coupled from day one.

Wet, irrigation-heavy environments demanded a true IP68 path: ASA materials, sealed electronics, and a form factor that could be fully submerged without sacrificing RF or sensing performance.

Approach

From thin envelope to field-ready product

We treated Sense-W as a full product program spanning mechanical, electronics, firmware, RF, and manufacturing, so the ultra-low profile remained a shipped constraint rather than a rendering that could not be built.

1. Ultra-Low-Profile Mechanical & Sensing Stack

Sense-W is a ring-shaped weighing platform with a side-mounted electronics module, manufactured in ASA for chemical and moisture resistance. Thin-Envelope Integration: Load sensing, structural stiffness, and sealing had to coexist in a profile thin enough to live under individual pots without lifting the canopy or breaking bench ergonomics. Manufacturability Under Constraint: The same ultra-thin geometry that defined the product also constrained tooling, PCB outline, and assembly. WIRL owned industrial design through DFM so the envelope stayed manufacturable at volume.

2. DSP Accuracy with Multi-Radio Connectivity

Weight alone is not useful if the reading drifts or the device cannot report from deep in a greenhouse. DSP Signal Chain: On-device digital signal processing stabilizes measurements across the 0-10 kg range at 5 g accuracy, even when pots, media, and irrigation noise challenge a naive load-cell readout. LoRa · NFC · BLE: LoRa carries telemetry up to ~1 km for facility-scale coverage. NFC and BLE support provisioning, local service, and short-range workflows without forcing every interaction through the long-range link.

3. IP68 & Five-Year Power Budget

Grow environments punish enclosures and batteries alike. Submersible Design: The system was engineered toward an IP68 rating so units can be washed down or fully submerged without compromising the sealed electronics module. Ultra-Low Power: Sleep budgeting, radio duty cycle, and component selection were tuned so the device can target up to five years of battery life at the intended sampling and uplink schedule, avoiding a constant field battery program.