The most important merit of this conference, and the proceedings, is that all presented designs are physically built and tested. Experimental results are those that prove a system against simulations that might hide real problems.

This book consists of 16 accepted papers of the 32 submitted and a set of poster and demo abstracts. The chapter organization is not clear, as it starts with applications in Part 1, followed by poster and demo abstracts (Part 2), and then low-level components, networking, and energy in the other three parts.

Part 1, “Applications,” includes only two applications, one for monitoring snow and the other for tracking flying foxes. Both papers have merits in regard to the sensor network design and engineering, and provide sufficient details about the construction of the sensor in use, the network, and the testing. The other two papers focus on sensor network management, namely the rendezvous protocol and scatternets.

In Part 2, the demos and posters are allocated five pages each, giving much less information on the sensor networks than a regular paper. However, the positive aspect is that all discuss real systems, from cooperating toys to bridge monitoring sensors, and present experimental results.

The first paper in Part 3 proposes the use of the sensor clock skew as a node identifier. Although interesting, this method is sensitive to environmental changes; there is no mention of energy consumption, which is particularly relevant to sensors. The next paper introduces MagoNode, a new low-power wireless sensor. The new sensor design is compared with other commercially available similar devices. Experiments with a 20-node network deployed in a building basement produce good results in terms of energy consumption. The operating system is TinyOS. Energy measurements can be difficult when monitoring mobile devices and their applications. In the third paper, the authors examine MIMOSA, an energy measurement technique proposed for low-power systems. This is a hardware-software solution that promises an accurate measurement of energy. The last paper presents a testbed for backscatter sensor networks.

Four papers are included in Part 4, “Networking.” From better distribution of nodes and dual access points that lead to a more robust time-division multiple access (TDMA) protocol, to IPv6 routers that will help the future Internet of Things, Part 4 covers important aspects of sensor networking.

Part 5, “Energy,” is not dedicated, as a reader would expect, to energy management of the sensor device or network, but to energy conservation in buildings, either by monitoring the external conditions or the occupancy of the rooms. Another application is energy efficiency for cultural heritage buildings. The only paper that does not discuss building energy is an analysis of the solar energy contribution to the overall energy management of the sensor.

Personally, I fully support real engineering research that produces experimental results, not just simulation results. In this respect, this book can be recommended to all postgraduates interested in this research and also engineers that plan to design and build sensor networks.