These small devices are used to track the temperature of sensitive materials (like medicine, food etc.) during a transportation. They are usually single-use devises and considered to be e-waste as soon as a cargo container is delivered. Yes, imagine thousands of trucks all around the world delivering thousands of boxes with implanted little pieces of hardware destined to become a heap of e-waste just after few days of operating. I disassembled several samples and found out that some of them might be reprogrammed and repurposed with a little bit of reverse engineering.
In average, what you get is a well-assembled power-optimized board with a genuine 32-bit Cortex M3 or M4 microcontroller, RTC, temperature sensor, a couple of buttons and LEDs, LCD screen and USB support. On some boards GPIO pins are accessible, so it might be possible to extend their capabilities.
A brief database of temperature loggers repurposing capabilities For further details check out this project.
| Model | Performance | Peripherals | Hackability (reuse as a devboard) |
|---|---|---|---|
| TSS TempTracer Cradle 2 | ★★★ ATSAM4S16 | ★☆☆ None | ★☆☆ Maybe |
| Q-tag CLm doc | ★☆☆ STM32L152RCT6A | ★★☆ LCD | ★★★ Yes |
| TempTale 4 USB | ★★☆ ATSAM4S4B | ★★★ LCD, ATMLH414, Winbond25x40 | ★☆☆ Maybe |
| TempTale Ultra | ★☆☆ STM32L152RCT6A | ★★☆ LCD, Winbond25x40 | ★★☆ Yes |
| Testo 184 T3 | ★★★ MK40DN512VLK10 | ★★☆ LCD, adesto2106 25df321A | ★☆☆ Maybe (but no point) |