This year the editors of Sensors did something new: We looked over all the new-product releases of the past year and compiled an index of our top choices. The result is November’s cover story, Sensors’ Top 50 Products of 2006. Of course any such exercise is subjective, but we think the list we created represents some of the most interesting offerings on the market today.
To keep the project from being completely overwhelming we limited our choices to products that entered the market this year. Our lineup includes sensors (both components and instruments) and products that allow sensors to work successfully in the real world.
The Preliminaries
Senior editor Melanie Martella started doing the preliminary work on this list long before we even decided to compile it: She faithfully reads all the new-product announcements that come in to our offices and knows from experience what is newsworthy and what is more pedestrian. She culls out the most significant items to include in her Sensors Product Picks newsletter, a helpful guide to product releases, organized by category, which mails every other week.
The editorial team also laid some of the groundwork for our Top 50 list when we evaluated the Best of Sensors Expo nominations earlier in the year. Every year we run across some great submissions that we’re unable to honor with Best of Sensors Expo awards because of the specific criteria for that competition. Some of these ended up on our Top 50 list.
Your Input, Please
All told, we probably considered more than 1000 products to generate our Top 50 list. In reporting those we chose, we included a comment or two to indicate why they made the cut.
Now I’m wondering, What do you think of our choices? Have you found a product you think belongs on it—and isn’t? (Remember, though, we considered only products new within the past year.) Have you had an unsatisfactory experience with any of the items we selected?
We’d like to know. Please scroll to the bottom of this page and, under Post a Comment, type a short note to let us in on your thoughts.
In any case, we hope you’ll use the list to see how product development is trending these days. And, we hope you’ll find this snapshot helpful.