[chongli]

I'm still a bit confused. Suppose you have another table, call it temperatures with columns id and temperature, where every row contains only a valid temperature (no NULL records), and you have a main logging table with date and temperature_id so that you can join on temperature_id = temperatures.id. This seems to be what you mean, with a canonical measurement record table related via the temperature_id foreign key.

But then if your sensor fails to record a measurement don't you end up with NULL for that row's temperature_id?

[recursive]

Foreign key would probably go the other way:

LogEntry(LogEntryId, Date)

Temperature(TemperatureId, LogEntryId, DegreesF)

If there is no temperature measured, then you don't create a record in Temperature.