Got questions about our XYO Sentinels? Here's the place to learn!
- What is an XYO Sentinel?
- What is a use case?
- Can any device be an XYO Sentinel?
- Why can we trust the data?
- How does the cryptographic tech work?
- Where can I buy XYO Sentinels?
What is an XYO Sentinel?
The word Sentinel means literally, "a person whose job is to stand and keep watch". In the XYO Network, sentinels are location witnesses that can record the data in the physical world, and save it to a cryptographic ledger. They can observe heuristics, like location, temperature, elevation, wind speed, etc!
What's a use case?
Because an XYO Sentinel can collect different kinds of data, there's a lot of use cases for it!
For example, imagine a smart car that can report traffic increases, or current speeds on the highway! A smart watch that could report human heart rates in a certain location, or a shipping container that can detect the temperature of the goods inside it. Maybe even a drone that can tell you the elevation of the pizza it’s delivering.
There’s a lot of data out there, and we just need to make devices XYO-enabled so all that data can be verified, trusted, and delivered when someone needs to keep a more informed eye on their products.
Can any device be an XYO Sentinel?
Currently, we sell pre-made devices that function as XYO Sentinels. However, developers and companies can add our SDK (Software Development Kit) to their devices, make them XYO-enabled! This can add more data to a Sentinel’s individual ledger, or increase the amount of Sentinels we have in the network. For example, a developer could make their thermometer XYO-enabled, and contribute a location's temperature data to the network, or they could make their smartphone app XYO-enabled. (If you're interested in our APIs and SDKs, check our developer website.)
Why can we trust the data?
Sentinels can vouch for the certainty and accuracy of the heuristic by producing temporal ledgers. When an area has a lot of XY Sentinels, they can communicate with each other, and compare ledgers! If 90% of Sentinels report an item in one home, and 10% report it in another home, it’s much more likely that the 90% is correct. Using that decentralized method of finding the most likely information allows us to create the world’s first decentralized location-based oracle network!
I know a lot about blockchain and cryptographic technology. Could you give me a more detailed explanation of the XYO Sentinel?
If you want a more detailed explanation of the XYO Sentinel and its relationship to the other 4 components of the XYO network, you can read the XYO Network White Paper. The section pertaining to Sentinels is included below:
"Sentinels are location witnesses. They observe data heuristics and vouch for the certainty and accuracy of the heuristic by producing temporal ledgers. The most important aspect of Sentinels is that they produce ledgers that other components can be certain came from the same source. They do this by adding Proof of Origin to a relay chain of cryptographic proofs. Given that the XYO Network is a trustless system, Sentinels must be incentivized to provide honest location information. This is done by combining a reputation component with a payment component. A Sentinel is rewarded with XYO Network Tokens (XYO) when their information is used to answer a query. To increase their odds of being rewarded, they must create ledgers that are consistent with that of their peers and provide Proof of Origin to identify themselves as the source of the location information."
Where can I buy XYO Sentinels?