Welcome to the MT forum!

[Saralyn]

Hello and welcome! We're excited to introduce you to the all new Meraki MT sensors. The MT product line is launching with three models:

• MT10 temperature and humidity sensor
• MT12 water leak detection sensor
• MT20 open/close (intrusion) sensor

Sensors are managed via the Meraki dashboard, and use existing Wi-Fi 6 MR access points and second generation MV smart cameras as gateways. This makes MT sensors simple to deploy and easy to scale, and eliminates the need for on-premise management and dedicated gateways found in traditional sensor systems.  With flexible alert options, including SMS, email, and push notifications, MT sensors make it easy to keep tabs on your environment. 

For more information, check our website, blog, or documentation. If you have any questions, please let us know. We can't wait to hear what you think!

[cmr]

Is there a hardware reason that the WiFi5 APs cannot talk to the sensors, we don't usually install the latest and greatest APs by the server room 😉 

[BHC_RESORTS]

@cmr Same here. Or various IDFs we would like to monitor the environment on. I think it's the Bluetooth 5.0, I don't think the first gen MVs or the non WiFi 6 APs have it, I think they have 4.0.

Curious what feature of Bluetooth 5.0 is required, whether its the extra speed (doubtful) or the extended range (more likely) ?

[KonJain]

@cmr - That is a great question and you've assumed it correctly. Wifi 5 APs use a different BLE chipsets than the WiFi 6 APs. All of our new Wifi 6 APs(and 2nd Gen MV Cameras) have the latest and greatest BLE chipsets that allowed us to have a more robust and secure connection to the MT Sensors.

We may look at adding backward compatibility for WiFi 5 APs in the future but for now we've have about 16+ MV or MR gateways to choose from in order to get connectivity with the gateway.

[cmr]

Thanks @KonJain if you want a place to start, an MR42 or MR33 would be great as they are normally nearest the data rooms 😀 

[PhilipDAth]

Can you post some screenshots of what the dashboard looks like with these sensors?

[BlakeRichardson]

Gutted these only work with MR and MV. Was hoping for a wired solution but I guess not. 

Edit :

I have been thinking about this a bit more and I really think Meraki has missed the boat on this, I am a customer who has MS, MX and SM. We only have one MV and one MR unit which we are using as test units while we review our wifi and CCTV systems. 

We currently have 4 environmental monitoring appliances and would have swapped to Meraki units in a heartbeat had they supported wifi or at least an ethernet connection, sadly they don't so this isn't an option for me now and I am sure I am not the only customer in this situation, to design a product with such restrictive connectivity requirements is bad design IMHO. The whole idea of designing products is to sell as many as possible and the Wifi-6 MV gen 2 requirement stops that in its tracks. 

[Saralyn]

Hi @BlakeRichardson. Thanks for being a multi-product Meraki customer! I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts on the sensors, especially the added update. While I do understand your disappointment, I wanted to share some insight as to why we made the choices we did. We do realize that MT sensors will not work for all customers and in all scenarios. But perhaps in the future - especially if you do decide to go with MV and MR after reviewing your systems - you'll be able to install some yourself?

Wired versus Wireless

• Using Ethernet/PoE for connectivity limits flexibility in sensor placement. Additionally, Ethernet runs can be costly. While it may not be much of an issue for one or two sensors, customers that need dozens of sensors in one location could have to end up spending several thousand dollars on a switch just to support sensors, in addition to running cables to all of the sensor locations.

Wi-Fi versus BLE

• We chose to go with BLE for its power savings. Using BLE, we were able to get battery life up to 5 years on two AA batteries (and only one AA battery for the MT20). Wi-Fi is very power hungry, and would have resulted in a significantly shorter battery life.
• The other reason we went with BLE (and using Meraki devices as gateways) is simplicity. With BLE, there is nothing that needs to be configured, and connectivity is automatic. If we used Wi-Fi for the sensors, we would have to deal with IP addresses and other network level configurations. As deployments scale up, this can be difficult to maintain and correctly route traffic.

Limited Gateways

• We chose to focus on Wi-Fi 6 and 2nd gen MV cameras as gateways for launch. 1st gen cameras don't have Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi 6 APs use a different, newer version of the BLE chipset than Wi-Fi 5 APs. This allows for a more robust and secure connection to the MT Sensors, but we do plan to look at adding backward compatibility for Wi-Fi 5 APs. 

[RuiBras]

Hello,

Do you have plans to have API support for MT sensors? Getting historical reading information is very important for the scenarios I'm working on.

The other points which are important are:

- MQTT support based on events (using device JWT authentication please!!). ex: temp change 1º, send MQTT. flooding/door alarm

- X minutes update, like ScanAPI to complement "event trigger" information. ex: receive every minute temperature readings from all the sensors.

Last question/suggestion ... bring more sensors, like "light reading", CO2, people detection, etc.

[PhilipDAth]

>We only have one MV and one MR unit which we are using as test units while we review our wifi and CCTV systems. 

Think of it this way - rather than running in a cable for each sensor and allocating a switch port - you now need to install a single MR to support all of the sensors.  Sounds much simpler to me ...

[BlakeRichardson]

@PhilipDAth  That theory works if you have everything in one location, I have at least 4 spaces to monitor which already contain structured cabling therefore install cost is only the unit itself. I would have to purchase an MR or MV for each area I want to monitor, that doesn't seem cost effective to me.

Most end users are going to install these sensors in server / comms rooms that already contain structured cabling. 

I understand the direction taken by Meraki however I feel it does exclude a large amount of potential customers. As mentioned previously I do already have environmental monitoring with another provider however it's always nice to have one less system . 

[PhilipDAth]

I have a customer looking at using these in fridges and refrigerated trucks.  If they had to actually run structured cabling into each fridge - it would be cost-prohibitive.

They have many hundreds of fridges.  They have just two DCs.

You can see which is the bigger market.

[GreenMan]

The way I see it, customers who are going to be interested in MT sensors for their server / comms rooms are going want to monitor those locations with at least one camera.  That / those camera(s) are then also their BLE gateways.   Everyone's happy (?)

[bigben386]

False. I would honestly not be looking at Meraki cams if I had compatible APs.

[SandroZ]

Hi @PhilipDAth 

for partners the new sensors are already available in Cisco dCloud > Cisco Meraki Launchpad v1- Instant Demo

(San Francisco network > Environmental menu)

https://dcloud2-lon.cisco.com/content/instantdemo/cisco-meraki-launchpad-v1-instant-demo-partner?ret...

You can take a look and have a first hand experience, always better than just a screenshot 😉 !

[Saralyn]

Hi @PhilipDAth. Of course! Below are some screenshots from the dashboard. 

Sensor List Page

Sensor List Page

Sensor details page for an MT10. You can switch between Celsius and Fahrenheit. You can view up to 30 days of history in the dashboard currently, but we have plans to extend that out. You can also get the data via API.  Finally, notice the gateway connectivity info at the bottom of the page. 

 

Here's an example of setting up an alert. For MT10, you can set an upper and lower threshold for each condition (temperature and humidity). MT12 can alert when water is detected or absent, and MT20 can alert when the door is open or closed. In addition to email, we have native SMS alert capabilities. The new Meraki mobile app also supports push notifications.

Alert Configuration

[Jim_Liang]

I believe that the development of supporting Wifi-5 AP's are on the way.

[bigben386]

Since we don't have any wifi 6 APs, we are looking to use a MV as a gateway. What is the expected coverage radius of a MV?

[PhilipDAth]

I don't know the answer.

Being BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) I expect the range would not be very good.

[Saralyn]

@bigben386 the distance depends on a variety of factors, but the range should be comparable to 2.4GHz Wi-Fi as they are the same frequency. Not an ideal answer, I know, but the best way is to test it out. There is gateway connectivity info on the sensor detail pages, which gives you some insight into the connection stability and signal strength. (Screenshot below).

[bigben386]

Thanks for the info. That should be enough range to cover our server closet and the electrical room. I saw something online that said the BLE 5 range was up to 240m. That seemed unrealistic.

[BV-Sensing]

Sensing Vision is very interessed in this new line of products, we will receive our first samples at the end of the week
We have requested to the Meraki support the access to the associated API 

We are actually selling vertical solution including LoRaWAN IOT solutions (temperature, water leaks, door opening...), blended with "Meraki as a sensor" data that provide building occupancy from MR Access Pont or MV Cameras

Mainly on the Smart Building / Smart City and Smart Territory business

We just find very strange the use case of these sensors on the "Data Center" business
-> so small 🙂

We have these discussion with MERAKI team in EU

[PhilipDAth]

>We just find very strange the use case of these sensors on the "Data Center" business

I agree, but think of this as a "generation 1" product, a "minimum viable product" in Meraki speak.

Generation 2 will get much better again.

[BV-Sensing]

Hello @PhilipDAth 

Il think there is also a "go to market" issue

I'm sure that MERAKI will have a far broadest range of sensors in time, if the focus is Datacenter, we will need Electricity Metering solution, Air Flow monitoring...

May be the subject for MERAKI is : on wich market our existing MERAKI partners will be able to sell this new line of products
Datacenter ? - 1 sensor projects ?
🙂

We will test these sensors for "smart building" projects : we have a Concert Hall fully équiped with WiFi 6 AP and MV Camera and we will test these sensors for environemental monitoring / security features

By the way we are very excited to test these new MT sensors

[Bossnine]

We just got a trial in that will be installed in our main data center for testing purposes. 

Fingers crossed it works as expected.

[MerryAki]

Kind of the products shown by Ubiquiti, Unifi Access, or a wallbox (first gens were often replaced by something new) 😄 You know what Meraki and Ubiquiti have in common? Both invented a solar powered wireless access point, that wasn't successful. 

Meraki Solar

https://meraki.cisco.com/lib/pdf/meraki_setup_solar.pdf

Ubiquiti UISP SunMAX (SunSwitch/SunPoint)

https://solar.ui.com

But talking about industrial and cloud enabled equipment you should consider Mikrotik, as they were not only offering LoRaWAN, but also any kind of industrial, cloud enabled network equipment. (Without the license hassle, in most cases :P)

[MerryAki]

@BV-Sensing totally agree to that 🙂

There should be some more coverage, like the use of the USB Ports on Cisco WAPs for LoRaWAN Gateways or current devices should be cloud enabled:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/routers/interface-module-lorawan/hardware/installation/guide/b...

Here is an overview on how to implement that existing Cisco product in TTN:

https://www.thethingsindustries.com/docs/gateways/models/ciscowirelessgateway/

[SimonNZ91]

Have made a wish in the Dashboard but please implement conditions for alert profiles.

Example being: Only alert me if the MT20 Sensor detects the door is open AND it is outside office hours.

[GreenMan]

I think there are quite a few developments in the pipeline.    I strongly suspect that will be one of them (as will - my door has been open longer than x minutes)
Meraki likes to get stuff out there early and then develop based upon the feedback received from our customers - so keep the wishes coming!

[PhilipDAth]

I've just been playing with an MT10.

I don't like how the temperature units (Celsius versus Fahrenheit) is under as part of the logged in the user's profile.

I think this should probably be a Network-Wide/General property.

[cmr]

@PhilipDAth as long as the alerts act on both scales at the same actual point, I'd think it is good.  We are in the UK but our parent company is in the US so different users would want the different scales.  If the alerts aren't bi-temperate then it should be an overall setting as you said.

[Ghostfighter]

I am trying to write a script to access the MT10 temp and Humidity through the API. I am not seeing any information in the API documentation on accessing the MT devices. Is there an updated API or any other information that can be provided for this?

[GreenMan]

The Dashboard API functionality for MT sensors is in beta and will need enabling in your Dashboard Organization.  Can I suggest you reach out to your Meraki account team to gain access?  PM me if you have trouble…

[Court]

Our MT10 sensors humidity reading isn't stable. It's constantly varying between peaks and lows. It seems to stay at 45%, then every half hour spike to around 65%. Is it defective?

[GreenMan]

There's no way to tell, given just this information, whether the MT is faulty or not.   I would try moving some of your MT11s around, if you can and see how things change (or not) between sensor and environment.  In particular, if you have another one providing the kind of values you expect, could you deploy it, for a short time, alongside the existing one, to see how their results compare?   I've found that humidity changes quite a lot, in relatively short periods of time, in some environments.