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uThing™: USB Sensor Dongles

Welcome to the official documentation for the uThing™ series of USB sensor dongles.

This documentation provides the information you need to integrate uThing™ devices into your projects.

uThing Sensors

What are uThing™ Devices?

uThing™ devices are easy-to-use USB sensors that combine a microcontroller with various sensors in a small form factor.

Key Features:

  • Simple Integration: All devices enumerate as a standard Virtual COM Port (VCP) on Linux, macOS, and Windows, requiring no special drivers.
  • Flexible Data Formats: Output data directly in JSON, CSV, or a human-readable format.
  • Onboard Processing: The microcontroller handles data acquisition, processing, and in some cases, sensor fusion, reducing the load on the host system.

How to Get Started

Step 1: Test Your Device

Before writing any code, you could test your device with our live web dashboards. This is the quickest way to see your sensor data in real-time and confirm everything is working correctly.

Find the dashboard link in the Quickstart guide for your specific model below.

Step 2: Choose Your Integration Path

Once you've tested your device, choose one of the following paths for your project.

For the fastest setup, use our free open-source uBridge server. It's a ready-to-run application that handles all the device communication for you. It's the perfect choice for:

  • Logging data to CSV files.
  • Broadcasting data via an MQTT broker for IoT projects.
  • Use HTTP requests to integrate with different backends.
  • Pushing data to InfluxDB databases and more.

Learn about the uBridge Server →

Path B: Manual Integration (DIY)

For custom applications, you might want to communicate with the device directly from your own code. This path offers maximum flexibility and it might be preferred if you need to integrate the sensor into an existing application.

Just keep in mind that you will have to take care of the detection and identification of the enumerated devices, disconnections, etc.

The starting point for this method is our guide to connecting the dongle manually.

Learn about Manual Integration →

uThing™ Models

(This section directs users to the Quickstart guides and detailed model information)

uThing::VOC

uThing::VOC

Air-quality (VOC), eCO2, temperature, humidity & pressure

uThing::MNL

uThing::MNL

Motion (PIR), Noise (SPL) & Luminosity

uThing::iPH

uThing::iPH

Lab-grade isolated pH & ORP meter with ATC