Commercial and open-source multi-sensor instruments have become common in the marketplace. Some of these, for example the basic tablet or smartphone, can be inexpensive but may lack features such as adequate sample rates for basic motion experiments. Commercial products from PASCO and Vernier are being introduced with Bluetooth capability allowing a laptop, tablet or hybrid logger to acquire data wirelessly. These products and the open-source IOLab device offer the opportunity to accomplish particular lessons of the general physics laboratory without the need for a physical laboratory and without an expensive inventory of lab equipment. This paper presents the authors' use of the IOLAB with a minimal set of additional components to replicate or slightly modify the existing General Physics laboratory exercises in our two semester sequence in the Department of Engineering-Physics-Systems at Providence College. The potential of this approach to laboratory instruction in traditional laboratory curricula, for distance learning or for resource constrained environments, such as rural schools in the developing world is discussed.