In order to improve the data acquisition and condition monitoring capability of the rotating device in the nuclear power plant that is already in operation, it is necessary to solve the problems of sensor installation and cable laying. In this paper, an intelligent wireless vibration sensor based on Zigbee IoT communication technology is designed. The field programmable gate array (FPGA) is adopted as the main control unit. The circuit composition and the work principle of the sensor are given, as well as the working flow of the embedded control software. The performance of the sensor is tested, and the results show that the power consumption of the sensor is low, and the vibration signal can be collected, analyzed and uploaded continuously. The sensor is simple to install, and there is no need to lay power supply and signal cables, and can be used to constitute the condition monitoring system for the rotating device of nuclear power plants.