It’s well-known that disasters often lead to the biggest
advancements. Innovations that would normally take years to receive the
necessary funding and overcome legal hurdles can be deployed far more
quickly during, and in the aftermath of, a crisis.
Governments and investors are looking for companies with technologies
that can not only restore some normality but help us to “build back
better”. IoT News’ list of innovative companies to watch in 2021 may
provide some inspiration.
In alphabetical order:
GE Digital
General Electric’s roots trace back to Thomas Edison himself. The company’s subsidiary, GE Digital, aims to continue the legacy of one of the world’s most famous innovators.
GE Digital was launched in 2015 and focuses on IIoT (Industrial
Internet of Things) solutions to disrupt industries such as
manufacturing, energy, telecommunications, and, of course, power
generation.
“GE Digital offers the industry deep domain expertise and insights on
customer problems. We use analytics and digital twin capabilities to
allow us to extract usable business insights. This provides us with the
ability to tie insights to business outcomes by automating workflows, by
interfaces to customers, and integrating with the control system in a
customer’s facility,” Colin Parris, senior vice president and CTO of GE
Digital, tells IoT News.
The company has several notable projects and achievements under its belt over its relatively short life so far including:
- Chery Jaguar Land Rover uses GE Digital’s Proficy MES in their
engine manufacturing facility in Changshu to connect more than 100,000
integration points in real-time across 500 machines on the shop floor.
- China’s
SAGW (Shanghai Automobile Gear Works) uses GE Digital’s Proficy Plant
Applications to create a “Process Digital Twin”. The use of a digital
twin has improved equipment utilisation by 20 percent and reduced
inspection costs by 40 percent.
- WACKER Chemical Corporation uses
APM from GE Digital to extend pressure vessel scheduled maintenance
from every two years to a maximum of every 10 years, saving millions of
dollars per year.
- India’s power grid withstood a 31-gigawatt
drop and recovery with support from the GE Digital Grid Software team
and Advanced Energy Management System (AEMS) solutions after the
country’s prime minister asked citizens to turn off their lights for
nine minutes so show solidarity in the fight against COVID-19.
In March last year, GE Digital announced that its GE Digital Core
Digital Twin Blueprint library had exceeded 300 types of industrial
assets.
“In 2021, you will see us build out more use of data and remote
capabilities in our solutions for customers. We will also be focusing on
the expansion of new digital twin and industrial AI capabilities to use
data more effectively.”
Google Cloud IoT
One of the largest cloud platforms is also one of the most important for the IoT. Google Cloud IoT provides fully-managed services which allow customers to connect, store, and analyse data in the cloud and at the edge.
“We know the IoT can be complicated for businesses to navigate.
Google Cloud IoT Core takes away the headache of deploying and running
connected devices and services,” says Ping Wu, senior engineering
director at Google Cloud.
“Our high-performance, reliable infrastructure enables customers to
not only develop products at record speed but scale their operations to
meet growing demand. At the same time, our sophisticated AI/ML-driven
data analytics and management products such as BigQuery helps businesses
to derive tangible value from their data.”
Google’s vast and reliable infrastructure aims to give businesses the confidence they need for IoT deployments.
Google Cloud recently announced that it’s helping Ingersoll Rand – a
provider of mission-critical flow creation and industrial solutions – to
consolidate the multiple platforms which manage IoT devices across its
brands into one cloud-based solution.
However, that’s not the only recent success story for Google Cloud’s IoT platform.
“Last month we announced that Signify, the creators of the highly
successful Philips Hue line of smart light bulbs, selected Google Cloud
as their preferred partner of choice to power millions of connected
smart lighting devices.”
“Through a large fleet simulation using virtual devices and live
field testing, Signify found that our Cloud IoT Core met and exceeded
their scalability, performance and security expectations. This result
proved that Cloud IoT Core and the associated architecture would support
Signify today and in the future.”
Sigfox
Global 0G network provider Sigfox
connects billions of IoT devices around the world with minimal power
consumption—helping to save costs and the planet in one fell swoop.
“IoT has been around for a long time, initially named M2M, but Sigfox
is definitely the pioneer of Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) that brought
IoT in a totally new dimension enabling to address new markets, new
verticals, new use cases,” comments Franck Siegel, deputy chief
executive officer at Sigfox.
“Since its creation in 2010, Sigfox has built the first and largest
globally available end-to-end IoT platform – from device to API –
dedicated to massive IoT,” adds Siegel. “Sigfox presents all of the
attributes required for it to become a leading IoT platform services
provider and we are focused on ultra-low-cost and ultra-low-power asset
visibility and tracking.”
As of November 2020, Sigfox’s IoT network covers a total of 5.8
million square kilometres across 72 countries. The network uses the 868
MHz band in Europe and 902 MHz in the US and its signal passes easily
through solid objects.
Predictably, given the versatility of its solution, Sigfox has a lot
of interesting case studies. However, the company says its “sweet spot”
is in low-cost, low-power asset visibility and tracking.
“We provide tracking and monitoring assets that are battery-powered
and must be very cost-effective in order to provide the right ROI to
customers for whom condition monitoring information is required on top
of the geolocation information such as temperature, pressure, lighting,
[and] metering,” says Siegel.
Sigfox says it’s seeing particularly fast growth for tracking
solutions in automotive, post, stolen vehicle recovery, and,
interestingly, breweries.
In 2020, Sigfox was among the handful of companies that managed to
continue thriving and gained significant momentum and achieved a 200
percent 3Y CAGR of messages processed on its network. This year, the
company will be building further on that momentum.
“We have now created the momentum in the market which has started to mature.
2021 will leverage this momentum and see our connectivity and
geolocation business grow significantly, in particular in the four
markets mentioned above,” says Siegel.
“In terms of services portfolio, we will be expanding our geolocation
services, adding up short-range offerings to our already dense
long-range ones. 2021 will also be the year where we will expand the
portfolio of our strategic partners. We will announce a few but
significant global partnerships in the chipset, device, network, and
data areas.”
VADE
VADE is an example of the
many IoT startups using emerging technologies to help tackle the
inefficiencies of legacy systems in our cities.
The company uses a combination of IoT hardware and computer vision
technologies for “last mile” mobility solutions. Real-time information
about curb space availability gives cities more data to understand where
problems occur while guiding drivers to free spaces—reducing
frustration, congestion, and emissions.
“We are hyper-focused on removing the barriers to adoption to
real-time curb data, which manifests in all parts of our business: our
proprietary solar cameras don’t need power or network wiring, our
subscription pricing is simple and affordable, and our Data-as-a-Service
model reduces switching costs by making it easy for vendors to
integrate and improve existing operations,” explains Matty Schaefer, CEO
and co-founder of VADE.
One of the most interesting deployments VADE is working on at the moment is in Sarasota, Florida.
“We’re working with Walker Consultants to analyse commercial loading
activity across alleyways, curbsides, and on-street parking spaces in a
core part of downtown,” says Schaefer. “Commercial vehicles have been
using curbsides and parking spaces instead of alleyways, sometimes
blocking multiple angled parking spaces for extended periods of time.
“By measuring the utilisation of curb space by the type of vehicle –
like delivery vans, freight trucks, and TNCs – we are building a source
of truth for the demand that will help inform future curb management
plans and policies.”
VADE is excited about how the data collected through its deployments can help to inform future decisions.
“We’re thrilled with the results to our original hypothesis that
accessibility is the bottleneck to the adoption of real-time data, and
now we’re excited to push the boundaries of what can be done with that
data today, in five years, and in 50 years,” says Schaefer.
Throughout the rest of 2021, we can expect further cities to start
using VADE, more integrations, and Schaefer teases us with “more
products”.
Zigbee Alliance
The Zigbee Alliance aims to make the protocol the “standard-bearer of
the open IoT” and has solidified its place as one of the leading
standards with support from the likes of Signify (Hue), Hive, Bosch,
ASSA ABLOY (Yale), Belkin, Resideo (Honeywell Home), Schneider Electric,
and many, many more.
“On the enterprise side, what enables success for anyone looking to
build their business around IoT devices is, probably, four key things –
ability to scale, cost to develop, time to market and customer value,”
says Michelle Mindala-Freeman, head of marketing at the Zigbee Alliance.
“We are one of the few, if not the only, organisations who have
brought all the major IoT ecosystem providers to one table to develop
together a single, interoperable, IP-based IoT protocol standard.”
For the techies, Zigbee uses the IEEE’s 802.15.4 personal-area
network spec which provides a clear line-of-sight range of 300+ meters,
or around 75-100 meters indoors. The exciting part about Zigbee is that
it creates a mesh where each interoperable device is able to communicate
with the next device. Zigbee can handle around 65,000 devices.
“With our new open-source approach, we’re not just creating specs;
but members are contributing code, currently to GitHub, that can be
leveraged to speed up the development process and also lower development
costs,” adds Mindala-Freeman.
One of the projects Mindala-Freeman is most excited about is Project CHIP (Project Connected Home over IP).
“Project CHIP is an ambitious project to develop a fully IP-based
common protocol stack for IoT in record time. Unlike your traditional
people-in-a-room creating documentation, we have taken a radically
different approach for Project CHIP.
“Our members still do the typical prepare use cases and develop those
into standards ‘specs,’ but they are also creating demo code and
putting that into GitHub for developers. So, as we get to releasable
standards, folks will have access to actual code—to use for tech
demonstrations, training, or to accelerate development.”
Mindala-Freeman says 2021 will be “historic” for Zigbee and teases
big news will be coming from the Alliance in the coming months.
Aside from that news, which you can be assured IoT News will have for
you as soon as possible, the Zigbee Alliance will double-down on
increasing device certifications (not content with a record 32% increase
last year!) and working hard on advancing Project CHIP alongside 160+
participants including Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung, and others.
Z-Wave
Competition is healthy, and there’s room for more than one standard in a space as vast and growing as the IoT.
Z-Wave is an open,
internationally-recognised ITU standard (G.9959) and the most
widely-adopted in wireless home control with over 3000 certified
interoperable products worldwide from more than 700 companies including
the likes of ADT, LG, and SmartThings.
“Z-Wave technology stands out for a few reasons – our legacy in the
industry (this year is Z-Wave’s 20-year anniversary), robust
interoperable product ecosystem, technology benefits such as low-power
consumption and backwards compatibility, and a commitment to security
and innovation in the market,” says Mitch Klein, executive director at
the Z-Wave Alliance.
Z-Wave is much lower power than Wi-Fi but with a far greater range
than Bluetooth. While it has a slower data transmission rate than
Zigbee, the latter operates on the Wi-Fi standard frequency of 2.4GHz.
By avoiding this busy frequency, Z-Wave avoids noise and increases
coverage.
“We are always looking to make improvements to Z-Wave technology so
that it fits the needs of manufacturers, integrators, and consumers
alike, as new opportunities and pain points emerge,” says Klein.
“For example, the Z-Wave Security 2 (S2) security framework was
created a few years ago to address the growing concerns around device
security. Mandatory in all devices certified after April 2017, it was
developed in conjunction with the cybersecurity expert community and
offers the already secure Z-Wave new levels of impenetrability.
“The recent Z-Wave Long Range specification was also developed to
suit the changing needs of the market – it supports larger networks and
increased range, which provides support and scalability that growing
vertical industries such as MDU and hospitality require.”
Property-wide IoT network specialists STRATIS
recently fitted 203 apartments – spanning three buildings – with JASCO
Z-Wave Smart Lighting Dimmers and Switches, Schlage Smart BLE Locks,
Honeywell Wi-Fi Thermostats, ButterflyMX Guest Access Control, and Alexa
Voice Control. The deployment is a testament to Z-Wave’s strengths in
range and interoperability.
“The property-wide Z-Wave and Wi-Fi network provides a secure,
constant connection for all devices. Because of the advantages of the
network installation, the portfolio is recovering 100 percent of its
investment in less than two years, as well as benefiting from the
increased property value.”
Last year, the Z-Wave Alliance became a solely independent and
non-profit organisation that new oversees standard development which
gave the alliance “new capabilities to both define and execute on the
changes we want to see in the market – both from a technology and market
development standpoint.”
In 2021, the Z-Wave Alliance will be taking advantage of those new
capabilities to develop new projects and initiatives to address evolving
industry needs, issue new technical updates, and recruit new members to
further develop the standard.
Klein says the alliance will also have more to share soon on its
Z-Wave Long Range certification program. IoT News will keep you posted.
