Live underwater sensing in the Charles River

3 sensing elements on a backscatter tag

Our deployed conductivity, temperature and depth sensor.

This underwater sensor communicates sensor data live using underwater backscatter, enabling a battery life of 2 years of fully-submerged operation.

Until now, underwater backscatter systems have been limited to short-term laboratory experiments. BlueTag is the first underwater backscatter device to be deployed long enough to sense meaningful environmental data (since July 9th, 2025).

Graphs from the deployed sensor

Every 15 minutes, real-time data from the sensor is off-loaded via an underwater backscatter communication link. This sensor data is viewable live here.