Helium Gives Rise to New IoT Sensor Platform
Helium, a San Francisco-based startup, has launched its first products, which include software and analytics services. Helium has designed a battery-powered device that can support multiple sensors and is designed for end users to easily attach to assets in order to build a wireless sensor network within minutes. For instance, mounted on a refrigerator, one Helium sensor could be used to track temperature and whether the door is open or closed. But the devices could also support sensors to track other variables, such as proximity or vibration. According to multiple press reports, Helium’s devices communicate using a variation of the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, and can switch between the 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz frequency bands. The devices are expected to run for one year on two double-A batteries.
Software running on the device performs basic data filtering and power management. The data that the device transmits is collected by and stored in Helium’s cloud-based platform, which uses machine learning to trigger alerts based on abnormal behavior and the end user’s preferences.
Helium’s first packaged offering is designed for institutions such as hospitals that manage banks of refrigerators used to store high-value inventory. The hardware and software package includes prebuilt alerts and helps users ensure that temperatures remain in compliance with regulations.
As a new IoT platform focused on enterprise applications, Helium has generated considerable buzz in IoT circles and is backed by a $16 million Series A round of venture capital. Its investors include Khosla Ventures, as well as Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff.
Aeris Survey Reveals Mixed Feelings Around IoT Deployments
Aeris, a machine-to-machine services provider, has released the results of a survey it commissioned in order to better understand the operational benefits and financial returns end users are realizing from IoT deployments. The results show that while most respondents—particularly those in the retail or financial services industry—feel confident that their IoT deployments will enable their companies to meet business objectives and provide them with competitive advantages, scaling up their IoT project also brings challenges around device and data management.
Analyzing sensor and connectivity data to obtain useful insights is difficult, according to 72 percent of respondents, while 73 percent are concerned about how to best collect, manage and store IoT data. Of respondents in the financial services industry, 75 percent said they are making device management a priority, which is an 18 percent increase over the results of a similar survey conducted in 2013. Across all industries, 50 percent or more of respondents said that ensuring pervasive connectivity, provisioning and device management is a challenge.
The 200 respondents of the survey, which technology market research firm VansonBourne conducted in August, were all IT decision-makers (such as IT managers and directors or CIOs) from organizations with 1,000 or more employees. Two hundred are based in the United States, while 100 are in the United Kingdom. The survey results skewed based on geography, with U.K. executives expressing more pessimism about the potential for the IoT to offer them a competitive advantage. Only 46 percent said they think it does, while 83 percent of U.S. respondents said it gives them a competitive advantage.
Enlighted Announces New Apps, Partners
Enlighted, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based provider of lighting- and energy-management systems, announced this week that it has launched two new Web-based applications: Enlighted Aire and Enlighted Space. Both are designed to help building or real-estate managers, as well as other building energy stakeholders, to easily access data about energy usage, space utilization and worker productivity, by leveraging data collected through Enlighted’s sensor network. Enlighted sensors measure motion (to determine occupancy), ambient light and indoor ambient temperature. Each sensor can monitor a 10-foot by 10-foot space and is integrated into a lighting fixture—either linking directly into an LED fixture or wired into a fluorescent fixture’s ballast, using a power pack provided by Enlighted.
The Enlighted Aire application generates a dashboard view of energy usage and includes customizable time schedules and real-time updates on heating or cooling utilization and temperature, by building zone. The Enlighted Space application provides deeper insight into how individual sections of buildings are being used in order to best inform energy efficiencies and space planning. Customers are able to safely and anonymously measure the usage of their workspaces to identify underutilized areas and develop optimization strategies.
Neither app enables users to directly control the heating or cooling settings inside the building. To act on any of the insights either app provides, users need to access Enlighted’s Energy Manager software, which runs on a dedicated appliance at the building site, but can also be accessed remotely through a Web-based user interface. The company reports that its clients have been evaluating both applications for much of the past year.
Enlighted also announced this week that it has partnered with real-estate services provider JLL to make Enlighted’s product available to JLL’s clients. In addition, LED light fixture manufacturer Amerlux has partnered with Enlighted to integrated Enlighted’s sensors into a range of Amerlux lighting products.
Tata Consultancy Services Launches Industry-Specific IoT Services
At this week’s Oracle Open World conference, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) launched a raft of new managed IoT services, leveraging Oracle software and targeted toward communication services providers and mobile virtual network operators.
TCS has designed eight hosted offerings in order to provide communication services providers (CSPs) and mobile virtual network operators (MNVOs) with industry-specific expertise. The rationale is that because CSPs and MNVOs are now offering end-to-end services that go beyond providing just connectivity for IoT devices, they can benefit from TCS’s experience within vertical industries, as well as with managing complex IoT deployments. The cloud-based hosted services are available through eight white-labeled IoT applications: connected car, fleet management, usage-based insurance, passenger and vehicle tracking, smart building, video surveillance, asset monitoring, and wellness and remote health care. According to TCS, the offerings are built on the TCS Connected Universe Platform (TCUP), TCS’s IoT application platform and Oracle’s Rapid Offer Design and Order Delivery (RODOD) solution, which is an order management and provisioning tool for CSPs, as well as Oracle Fusion Middleware—which, when used with TCUP, helps CSPs and MNVOs simplify IoT deployments.
Trimble, Raven Collaborate on Precision Farming Products
Trimble, a company that utilizes positioning technologies such as GPS to provide tools for field-based and mobile workers, and Raven, a maker of field computers and controllers designed for precision agriculture applications, have formed a partnership. Through the collaboration, users of Trimble’s Connected Farm solution, a software platform that helps farmers track crops from seed to harvest while making more efficient use of resources, can now access their Connected Farm accounts through Raven’s Slingshot field computers.
The integration, made possible via the Slingshot application programming interface, provides Connected Farm users with a means of accessing the platform while operating farm equipment and without relying on their mobile phones or Internet-connected tablet computers. It also allows users who subscribe to Raven’s Slingshot system to automatically transfer data from their Slingshot Web accounts and Raven’s field computers into their Trimble Connected Farm accounts.
Silver Spring Networks Rolls Out Operations Optimizer Platform for Utilities
Silver Spring Networks, a provider of wireless networking systems used for advanced utility-metering and smart-city applications, is now offering its utility customers a new analytics application designed to help them glean new insights and improve operational efficiencies based on the deluge of data they pull from smart meter deployments. The product, known as Operations Optimizer, comprises an analytics library and four configurable modules: AMI Operations, Grid Operations, Revenue Assurance and Customer Programs. These modules are designed to support their eponymous business functions.
With the AMI Operations module, users can track and monitor meter data collection, delivery problems and meter safety issues, as well as manage AMI deployments. The Grid Operations module aggregates and analyzes system-wide metering loads, and alerts users to asset risks and connectivity problems, among other features. With Revenue Assurance, users can look for ways in which they may be losing revenue, such as through energy theft and other non-technical losses. It also offers workflow, field-investigation and collection-tracking capacities. The Customer Programs module, focused on demand-side management, is designed to help utilities plan, deliver and measure programs for ratepayers. Operations Optimizer is the next generation of the software that Silver Spring Networks acquired when it purchased Detectent Inc., a utility data-analytics solutions provider, in January 2015.