One sensor on the electrical-room wall: hot panels, growing hot spots, dust build-up and room heat
Software: $29 per room per month
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01
The whole SwitchRoom
One ESP32-S3 head on the electrical-room wall watches the switchboards, cable tray and floor for heat, tracks dust and room heat, and collects the in-cabinet node.
02Brain
ESP32-S3 (SwitchRoom head)
The brain: it runs the switchroom-head program
03
Thermal camera
Sees hot breaker fronts, growing hot spots and room heat
ESP32-S3 (SwitchRoom head) · SPI + I²C (VoSPI) · 9 fps radiometric frames
04
Dust sensor
Tracks the dust trend so cleaning happens before build-up
ESP32-S3 (SwitchRoom head) · I²C (4 wires) · PM1–PM10 counts each minute
05
Room sensor
Logs room temperature and humidity
ESP32-S3 (SwitchRoom head) · I²C (4 wires) · °C and %RH
06
Door node in cabinet
Reads joint tags and watches breakers behind the closed door
RAK3172 door-node LoRa radio · LoRa radio (915 MHz) · Joint and breaker temperatures
07
LoRa receiver
Brings the door node's readings out of the steel cabinet
ESP32-S3 (SwitchRoom head) · UART · Node packets (AES-128)
08
Supervisory relay
Gives SCADA or a listed monitor module one alarm contact
ESP32-S3 (SwitchRoom head) · GPIO pin · Alarm on or off
09
PoE and Ethernet
Power and network from one cable
ESP32-S3 (SwitchRoom head) · SPI (W5500) + 5 V · Power and MQTT data
10
All connected
8 key parts, one program, and your phone
What it is
A thermal and dust sensor head for the electrical room of a dusty plant, with one brain that does the panel, hot-spot and dust jobs.
What it does
Who it's for
Sawmills, joineries, feed mills, recycling plants and other dusty sites with electrical or MCC rooms.
The idea
The problem today
In a dusty plant the electrical room gets an infrared survey once a year and nothing in between. Dust settles on the gear while a joint or breaker slowly runs hot, and separate panel, fire-camera and dust products each need their own hub and app.
With SwitchRoom
SwitchRoom's head on the wall sees every breaker front, the cable tray and the floor, tracks how fast a hot spot grows and how fast dust builds up, and logs room heat. A battery node inside one cabinet reads the bare busbar joints, and the maintenance lead gets one phone screen and one dry contact to the fire panel.
How the parts connect
Every part, what links it to the brain, and how the data reaches your phone. A solid line is a cable; a dashed line is a radio link.
The program
void loop() {
Frame f = lepton.read(); // 160 x 120, °C per pixel
for (Spot &s : tracker.update(f, masks)) // panels, tray, floor zones
if (s.riseCperMin > 0.5 && s.deltaC > 10) alert(GROWING_HOT_SPOT, s);
for (Zone &z : panels.update(f)) // breaker fronts vs their peers
if (z.peerDeltaC > 8) alert(HOT_BREAKER, z);
if (minuteTick()) {
Dust d = sps30.read(); Room r = sht40.read();
if (!r.misty && d.pm10 > 3 * dustBase.week()) alert(DUST_BUILDUP, d);
if (r.tempC > 40) alert(ROOM_HOT, r);
}
while (NodePkt p = lora.receive()) joints.update(p); // tags + MLX90640
relay.set(anyAlert()); // supervisory contact only
mqtt.publish("switchroom/state", state.json());
}To your phone
Maintenance lead's phone or browser, contractor dashboard
One screen for each job SwitchRoom does.
Breaker heatIn the sawmill's MCC room, the thermal head compares every breaker front with its neighbours. One feeder is running warmer than the rest.
Busbar jointsInside a closed cabinet, where the camera cannot see, the door node reads tags on the bare busbar joints every 20 minutes.
Growing hot spotLate on a shift, sawdust starts to smoulder against a hot cable gland by MCC-3. The thermal camera sees the spot keep getting hotter.
Dust build-upFine dust settles on the gear week after week. The dust sensor compares the room with its own last week and says when to book a clean.
App screens with sample data. The interface is in development.
| Growing hot spot | Floor by MCC-3: +12 °C, rising 0.9 °C/min | Each event, with a thermal still |
|---|---|---|
| Breaker fronts | MCC-2 feeder 4: 9 °C over its peers | Every minute |
| Busbar joints | Section 2 L2 lug 61 °C (+7 °C vs L1/L3) | Every 20 min |
| Dust trend | 3.4 × last week's level: book a clean | Hourly |
| Room | 34 °C, 41 %RH | Every minute |
Thermal camera only, no colour video; people are masked as warm shapes and never recorded.
CAD design · Design rev A, 27 Oct 2026: CAD, fit checks and assembled 3D model done; not built
| AI processor | ESP32-S3-WROOM-1-N8R8 with W5500 Ethernet and Silvertel Ag9905 PoE in the wall head |
|---|---|
| Sensors | FLIR Lepton 3.5 radiometric thermal camera (160 x 120) · Sensirion SPS30 dust sensor (relative trend) · Sensirion SHT40 room temperature and humidity · Door node: MLX90640 thermal array and M7E-HECTO reader for battery-free joint tags |
| Connectivity | Ethernet over PoE to the plant network · LoRa 915 MHz from the door node inside the cabinet · One supervisory dry contact |
| Power | One PoE cable, about 2 W (est.); door node on one D-size lithium cell, about 3 years (est.) |
| Enclosure | Grey ASA wall head with a dust visor, film window and dust cowl on a 25° bracket; PC-FR door node with magnets |
| Dimensions | Head 160 x 110 x 77 mm (visor 135 mm deep); door node 120 x 80 x 45 mm |
| Weight | ~0.6 kg head and bracket (est.) |
| Ingress rating | Designed for dusty indoor rooms, IP5X target (not tested) |
| Panels | Breaker fronts vs peers; bare joints by tag |
|---|---|
| Hot spots | Rise-rate tracking on floor, tray and panels |
| Dust | Trend vs the room's own 7-day level |
| Room | Temperature and humidity |
| Mount | Wall, 2.5-3 m up, 3-5 m from the line-up |
|---|---|
| Coverage | About 4 m of switchboard from 3 m (est.) |
| Power | One PoE (802.3af) cable |
| Output | One supervisory dry contact, MQTT |
Targets for production units; they may change during development.
Hardware: $1,390 per room (wall head, door node, 3 joint tags)
Software: $29 per room per month
Target pricing. Extra door nodes $449. Bought separately for one room, PanelHeat AI ($690 + $12/mo), EmberWatch AI ($3,490 + $39/mo) and DustWatch AI ($799 + $29/mo) add up to $4,979 + $80/month. Parts cost about $660 per room at qty 1 (est.). Installation inside electrical equipment must be done by a qualified electrician.
$1,390
One electrical room, every job.
$2,290
Two heads for line-ups over 4 m.
Custom
Many rooms, one dashboard.
Indicative launch pricing in USD, excluding taxes and shipping. Final pricing is confirmed before any balance is charged.
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From the product lab · ideation phase
It does the job of PanelHeat AI (hot breakers and busbar joints), EmberWatch AI (hot spots that keep growing) and the dust monitor in DustWatch AI (dust trend). Bought separately for one room those are $4,979 + $80 a month; SwitchRoom is $1,390 + $29 a month.
No. It is not a listed fire detector and it never triggers suppression. It is extra early warning next to your fire alarm. Its relay can go to SCADA, or to a listed monitor module fitted by your fire-alarm contractor, as a supervisory signal only.
No. The dust sensor shows a trend against your room's own normal so you can clean before dust builds up. It does not measure dust layers or prove your housekeeping meets any standard.
From the wall it sees breaker fronts, the cable tray and the floor. Joints behind closed doors need the door node and tags, fitted by a qualified electrician during a planned stop.
DustWatch AI's alarm for a saw running without water belongs at the cutting bench, so it stays in DustWatch AI. SwitchRoom takes only its dust monitor.
No. It is a concept in design. Specifications are targets. We are not taking orders, reservations or deposits, and it has no ship date yet.
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