This paper presents a first attempt to use event-based sampling strategies for signal diagnosis and analysis. This approach was developed in the control-engineering field. In an event-based sampling approach, a specific event trigger - not the time - instructs the sensor to grab a sample of the signal's current state and send the signal to the digital processing system. In this document, the concept of sampling based on events is discussed, and seven event-based strategies are presented. Also, applications of these sampling approaches for phenomena detection in waveforms are given. This experimental study provides new insights for applications that benefit from these event-based sampling techniques.