Low-cost connection platform to enable mining, agriculture IoT sensing
Swiss low-power, mass-Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity company Thingstream promises to provide 10 000 message queuing telemetry transport (MQTT) messages per device each month for $1/m using its cell-based connectivity systems, which are suitable for use in mining and agriculture, says Thingstream Business Development VP Neil Hamilton.
This connectivity-as-a-service proposition includes open-standards IoT device specifications for companies to build their own IoT devices.
The company also provides starter kits that include subscriber identity module cards and basic circuit boards to build their own IoT devices.
Significant Impact
The low-cost and low-power IoT connectivity will have a significant impact on industrial IoT and the development of more serviceable deployments of the technology.
Battery power has always been a challenge for industrial IoT use cases, as it is not viable to frequently replace the batteries of thousands of devices being deployed across an operation, he adds. “Low-power connectivity means that thousands of connected devices can be distributed in the field for industries including agriculture, mining, construction and many others for years, before batteries have to be replaced.
Low-cost solutions also mean that collecting valuable data from field operations becomes more economical and return on investment and business cases for the technology more justifiable.”
Many current IoT devices can cost between $100 and $300 and are usually applied only to key equipment or in critical applications. Thingstream-enabled, battery-powered IoT devices can cost as little as $50.
The Thingstream connectivity relies on Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) cellular services, available within 2G, 3G and emulated in 4G networks.
Thingstream delivers a global IoT-connectivity platform, which connects through GSM networks using a combination of MQTT and USSD messaging protocols.
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