Patent ID: 8108077

Claim:
An intelligent sensor device comprising: an irrigation sensor configured to sense analog irrigation information and generate digital irrigation related data therefrom; an interface configured to mutually transmit and receive communications directly, without routing through a central computer, to irrigation satellite controllers in a peer-to-peer distributed irrigation satellite controller network over a communication bus of the peer-to-peer distributed irrigation satellite controller network; an internal inter-integrated-chip (Inter-IC) communication bus entirely internal to the intelligent sensor device and coupled to the irrigation sensor to receive digital irrigation related data therefrom; a processor coupled to the interface, the processor is coupled to the irrigation sensor by the internal Inter-IC communication bus and obtains the digital irrigation related data from the irrigation sensor over the Inter-IC communication bus; and a memory coupled to the processor, the memory including instructions for configuring the processor to transmit a message including the irrigation related data over the interface via the communication bus of the peer-to-peer distributed irrigation satellite controller network to a destination node coupled to the peer-to-peer distributed irrigation satellite controller network.