A solar wireless collector beacon (data hub) and associated method stores source data, received wirelessly from a data source, in a data buffer of the data hub. Sensor data is read from one or more onboard sensors of the data hub and stored as structural and/or environmental data in the data buffer. The environmental data is processed to determine an operating status of a vehicle being used with the data hub and an energy harvester of the vehicle is controlled to harvest energy from the vehicle based on the operating status. One or more of the operating status, the source data, and the environmental data is wirelessly transmitted from the data hub to an external device.