In accordance with one or more further embodiments, a method is disclosed for operating a plurality of electronic sensor devices configured to take and report sensor readings or measurements relating to an asset with which each device is associated to a remote computer system. Each device has local area network connectivity to each of the other of said plurality of devices, and at least some of the devices have wide area network connectivity to the remote computer system. The method include the steps of: (a) designating one of the devices having wide area network connectivity as a designated device to communicate with the remote computer system using wide area network connectivity; (b) operating the designated device and the other devices to take sensor readings and measurements and the other devices to report sensor readings and measurements to the designated device using local area network connectivity; (c) operating the designated device to report sensor readings and measurements received from the other devices to the remote computer system using wide area networks connectivity; (d) detecting when a battery in the designated device has reached a charge level below a defined threshold and assigning one of the other devices as the designated device; and (d) repeating steps (b), (c), and (d) a plurality of times.