The concept of "Smart Dust" was first coined by Dr. Kris Pister, Founder and Chief Technologist of Dust Networks, as a way to visualize tiny wireless sensors embedded in everyday objects to provide access to previously stranded data. Today, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are seen as key to enabling a variety of applications to help make the planet smarter: everything from Smart Cities to Smart Industrial Plants to Smart Buildings to Smart Homes.

The hallmark of SmartMesh networks is that they use a "triple-play" of wireless mesh technologies—time diversity, frequency diversity, and physical diversity—to assure reliability, scalability, power source flexibility, and ease-of-use. A SmartMesh network consists of a network manager that monitors and manages network performance and relays data to the host application, and network nodes, called "motes", that relay data to and from each other and the manager.

Motes: SmartMesh motes are ultra low-power wireless transceivers that transfer data to and from attached sensors or actuators and use an onboard radio to send the packets to neighboring motes. These motes pass the packet on to other motes—and, in a series of "hops" deliver the data to their destination. Motes run SmartMesh software and are designed as simple-to-integrate wireless modules.

Manager: The manager coordinates routing, aggregates mote packets, collects network statistics, and publishes data to a host application. The manager can receive and publish data over XML or native serial interfaces.

In SmartMesh networks, every mote is a router capable of transmitting and receiving data and communicating with any mote within its range. Full-mesh WSNs are easily scalable because they are self-configuring. When a mote with proper security credentials tries to join a network, it is automatically discovered by neighboring motes. Each mote can forward data for other motes, and the determination of which motes forward data is made dynamically, based on the network connectivity. In this way, tens of thousands of motes can easily self-form into a smart, flexible network.

Using sophisticated routing algorithms (patents pending), the manager in a SmartMesh network continually optimizes the routing of data through the network. It is able to do this because every mote has multiple path options. Thus, if the pathway between two motes is obstructed, the network automatically reroutes transmissions via diverse paths to keep every mote in the network. This is called a "self-healing" network.

Motes can also be removed without disruption to the network. When a mote is turned off or removed from the network, network traffic is quickly rerouted via alternate paths to other motes to preserve communication. This intelligent redundancy typically provides better than 99.9% reliability, a figure unsurpassed by any other wireless technology to date.