Berg Insight today released new findings about the smart parking market. Excluding China, the global installed base of wirelessly connected in-ground and surface-mounted parking sensors reached an estimated 1.3 million devices worldwide at the end of 2023.

Growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.8 percent, the number of installed sensors is expected to reach 3.2 million in 2028. Europe and North America together accounted for more than half of the installed base, while the rest of the world markets (excluding China) accounted for about 31 percent. Prominent smart parking sensor markets outside of Europe and North America include Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East. While cities and municipalities are increasingly adopting smart parking technology, the private segment today accounts for the majority of the installed devices.

Following the recent exits of several leading vendors such as Streetline, SmartGrains, Nedap and Onesitu from the market, New Zealand-based Frogparking has emerged as the world’s leading smart parking sensor provider. The company had a global market share (excluding China) of 12.2 percent in Q4-2023. The top three also included US-based CivicSmart and Spanish Urbiotica, which both have a significant international presence. Other major vendors include Australia-based Smart Parking, the European companies Fleximodo (GOSPACE LABS), Smart City System, IoT Solutions Malta and ParkHelp Technologies, as well as the North American vendors PNI and Nwave Technologies. The top ten vendors together accounted for around 46 percent of the global installed base of smart parking sensors outside of China at the end of 2023. Only a handful of companies have yet managed to establish an international presence spanning two or more regions of the world.

The Covid-19 pandemic caused disruption to the industry but as city and local government budgets are gradually stabilising, the interest in smart city solutions such as smart parking sensors has returned. The pandemic moreover brought a change in the parking landscape as remote work has become more commonplace.

“For the private and company parking segments in particular, this has paved the way for new opportunities in the utilisation of parking sensors as they allow parking owners to efficiently manage demand and supply to provide just enough parking when and where needed”, said Felix Linderum, IoT analyst, Berg Insight.

In North America, the smart parking sensor market has historically struggled to overcome scepticism caused by a number of technology failures in the early days of the industry. So far, growth in the region has mainly been driven by the private segment but cities are now becoming increasingly interested in the technology.

“Cities require more consistent and accurate data to improve their parking management operations and most sensors today offer high performance”, continued Mr. Linderum.

As more and more cities embark on larger-scale rollouts after having completed lengthy pilot projects, the share of on-street deployments will also increase as cities are the primary owners of such parking assets. While off-street parking deployments, which are characterized by high parking space densities, have been favourable to the use of RF networks, on-street deployments place higher demands on network coverage and long-range communications capabilities. While RF networks will continue to see growth in the off-street parking segment, LPWA technologies are expected to dominate on-street deployments.

Mr. Linderum, concluded:

“The share of parking sensors communicating through LPWA technologies such as LoRaWAN and NB-IoT has grown significantly in recent years and it is expected that their market share in the off-street segment will eventually increase as well.”

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Berg Insight today released the latest edition of its comprehensive smart city technology report comprising in-depth studies of five key technology areas – smart street lighting, smart parking, smart waste collection, urban air quality monitoring and smart city surveillance.

In 2023, the global installed base of individually controlled smart street lights amounted to 23.4 million units (excluding China). The corresponding figures for the smart parking and smart waste sensor technology markets were at the same time 1.30 million and 1.25 million units respectively.

Smart parking sensors refers to in-ground or surface-mounted parking occupancy detection sensors while smart waste sensor technology consists of fill-level sensor devices that may either be pre-integrated into bins and containers, for example as a smart bin offering, or retrofitted on existing collection points. The smart street lighting market has now gained significant traction and its installed base will grow at a robust CAGR of 21.9 percent to reach 63.0 million units in 2028. The number of installed smart parking sensors is expected to see a slightly slower growth of 19.8 percent (CAGR) while the smart waste sensor technology market will be the fastest growing of the three with a CAGR of 22.8 percent.

A more nascent smart city technology area is the field of non-regulatory urban air quality monitoring, which comprises increasingly small and low-cost air quality monitoring devices that can serve as valuable complements to traditional regulatory monitoring stations. In 2023, the number of such non-regulatory air quality monitoring devices installed in outdoor urban environments amounted to 154,000 units globally and will reach 498,000 units in 2028. The largest of the five covered smart city application areas was meanwhile the smart city surveillance market, which reached a global market value of € 12.5 billion in 2023. The market, which includes both fixed and mobile video and audio surveillance solutions, is expected to grow at a CAGR of 16.8 percent throughout the forecast period.

Outside China, Europe has emerged as the leading smart city technology adopter while North America constitutes the second largest market. The Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions meanwhile constitute the fastest growing markets for smart city technology, fuelled by ambitious top-down initiatives and rapid urbanisation.

“These regions offer fertile ground for innovation and investment, presenting significant opportunities for stakeholders to capitalize on the demand for sustainable urban solutions and digital transformation”, said Felix Linderum, IoT analyst, Berg Insight.

There are great opportunities for growth within all the separate smart city application areas, however, from a horizontal perspective, one of the biggest challenges is interoperability between the different layers and technologies.

“Truly smart cities are starting to emerge but their continued development will largely depend on the ability of local governments to navigate the complexities involved”, continued William Ankréus, IoT analyst, Berg Insight. Overall, the demand for remotely managed infrastructure grows day-by-day.

Mr. Ankréus and Mr. Linderum concluded:

“The massive influx of people into cities around the world and the increased interest in social, environmental and economic sustainability will continue to act as driving forces for smart cities and their enabling technologies.”

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ABiT Corporation, a leading Internet of Things (IoT) device developer and solution provider, announces partnership with UnaBiz, a Massive IoT service provider and integrator, to enhance their technological offerings in the smart cities and logistics sectors in Japan and around the world.

The partnership will enable ABiT to create Sigfox-version of their IoT devices and solutions aimed at addressing the challenges facing smart cities and logistics industries. UnaBiz’s research and development team will support ABiT with expert engineering advice and essential documentation to ensure the seamless development and adaptation of devices.

The new line of Sigfox-ready solutions is targeted to be launched in Q4 2024, in markets within and beyond Japan through joint sales and marketing efforts. Existing customers of ABiT and UnaBiz will have priority access to the new solutions wherever they align with their technical requirements. UnaBiz will also promote ABIT’s made-in-Japan, high-quality IoT solutions to its network of 0G Operators present in more than 70 countries globally, supporting the adoption of market-defining Sigfox-enabled and multi-mode products and solutions.

Furthermore, both parties will engage in ongoing discussions to explore the development of Sigfox versions for bespoke products and projects, highlighting their long-term commitment to this partnership.

Takeo Hiyama, CEO of ABiT said, “UnaBiz and ABiT are complementary to each other: UnaBiz designs and markets Sigfox 0G Technology and has a strong distribution network through its Sigfox 0G Operators, while ABiT has excellent technical knowledge and experience to develop IoT devices and solutions on various LPWAN technology such as Sigfox, LoRaWAN and other cellular-based networks. We are looking forward to bringing Sigfox-enabled devices to market and promoting these products & solutions to our growing ecosystem of partners and customers.”

Alexis Susset, Group CTO of UnaBiz Group said, “UnaBiz’s approach towards LPWAN Convergence has paved the way for developing multi-connectivity devices, an area where ABiT’s capabilities shine. This partnership presents significant market potential for single-SKU, multi-mode solutions, demonstrating a strategic alignment to leverage the combined strength of both UnaBiz’s LPWAN convergence-ready Sigfox 0G Technology and ABiT’s LPWAN Products & Solutions within smart cities industries. Leveraging our global Sigfox operators footprint, the collaboration will enable both parties to expand our businesses and accelerate their go-to-market strategy in Japan and around the world.”

Together, they are also jointly designing and developing solutions at the forefront of government IoT use-cases innovation, paving the way for secure and localized implementations that address the unique challenges of the public sector.

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According to a new research report from the IoT analyst firm Berg Insight, the installed base of smart street lights amounted to 23.0 million globally at the end of 2022.

Growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.7 percent, the installed base will reach 63.8 million by the end of 2027.

Europe leads the adoption of smart street lighting technology and accounted for as much as 35 percent of the global installed base in 2022. North America is catching up with Europe and is growing robustly, accounting for around 37 percent of global shipment volumes in 2022. China was at the same time home to almost half of the installed base of smart street lights outside Europe and North America.

The world’s leading smart street lighting vendor was as of Q3-2023 Signify which with nearly 4.9 million connected street lights accounted for 18 percent of the global installed base. The company climbed to pole position after acquiring the former market leader Telensa in July 2021. Included in the top three were also US-based Itron and the Chinese Fonda Technology, of which the latter has most of its lighting controllers deployed in the domestic market. In total, the top three vendors accounted for almost a third of the global installed base of individually controlled smart street lights. Itron furthermore also constitutes a global leader in the networking segment.

Major smart street lighting players also include Quantela, Dimonoff, Ubicquia and LED Roadway Lighting from North America; Schréder from Belgium; Rongwen Energy Technology Group from China; Revetec and Umpi from Italy; Flashnet (Lucy Group) from Romania; Lucy Zodion (Lucy Group) and SSE from the UK; and ST Engineering Telematics Wireless from Singapore/Israel.

“The smart street lighting market experienced significant growth in 2022 and the first quarters of 2023, after a slowdown during 2021 following supply chain constraints and delays in the issuance of tenders for new projects in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic”, said William Ankreus, IoT analyst, Berg Insight.

Cities and municipalities have become increasingly aware of energy costs and environmental issues related to street lighting which has been a catalyst for growth in the smart street lighting market. While proprietary RF networking platforms have been the dominant connectivity type for smart street lighting deployments, the market is now clearly trending towards increased use of cellular communications in several parts of the world.

Mr. Ankreus continued:

“The simplicity and plug-and-play nature of cellular connectivity have made it an increasingly popular alternative for smart street lighting deployments and is expected to be the fastest growing connectivity technology”

The post The installed base of smart street lights to reach 64 million worldwide by 2027 appeared first on IoT Business News.

The concept of smart cities is rapidly becoming a reality, thanks to the transformative power of the Internet of Things (IoT). IoT is fundamentally altering how cities operate, bringing increased efficiency, sustainability, and improved quality of life to urban dwellers. In this article, we will explore the role of IoT in smart cities, its key applications, benefits, challenges, and the exciting future it holds for urban development.

The IoT Revolution in Smart Cities

A smart city leverages technology to enhance urban living, addressing challenges such as traffic congestion, pollution, and energy consumption. IoT plays a pivotal role in this transformation by connecting a vast network of devices, sensors, and infrastructure to collect and analyze data, enabling cities to make informed decisions.

Key Applications of IoT in Smart Cities

1. Smart Traffic Management

IoT sensors and cameras monitor traffic flow, congestion, and accidents. This data is analyzed to optimize traffic signal timing, reroute vehicles, and reduce congestion. Smart parking systems can also guide drivers to available parking spots, reducing traffic and emissions.

2. Public Safety and Security

IoT enables cities to enhance public safety and security through smart surveillance cameras, gunshot detection systems, and crowd monitoring. These technologies can identify and respond to emergencies in real-time.

3. Energy Management

IoT helps cities manage energy resources more efficiently. Smart grids enable real-time monitoring and control of electricity distribution, while IoT sensors in streetlights adjust lighting levels based on weather conditions and pedestrian activity, saving energy.

4. Waste Management

IoT sensors in waste bins can signal when they are full, optimizing waste collection routes. Smart recycling stations can also encourage recycling by providing incentives to users.

5. Environmental Monitoring

Cities can use IoT to monitor air and water quality, noise levels, and weather conditions. This data helps manage pollution, reduce emissions, and respond to environmental concerns promptly.

6. Healthcare

IoT-based healthcare solutions enable remote patient monitoring and faster emergency response. In smart cities, medical data can be transmitted from patients’ homes to healthcare providers, improving patient care.

7. Urban Planning

City planners use IoT data to assess land use, urban density, and infrastructure needs. This information aids in developing sustainable, future-ready urban environments.

8. Water Management

IoT sensors can detect water leaks in real-time, helping conserve water resources. Smart irrigation systems adjust watering schedules based on weather data, reducing water waste.

Benefits of IoT in Smart Cities

The integration of IoT in smart cities offers numerous advantages:

1. Enhanced Efficiency

IoT helps streamline city operations, reduce waste, and optimize resource allocation. This leads to improved efficiency and cost savings.

2. Improved Quality of Life

Smart cities prioritize the well-being of residents. IoT applications in healthcare, safety, and environmental monitoring lead to a higher quality of life for urban dwellers.

3. Sustainability

By monitoring and managing resources more efficiently, IoT contributes to sustainable urban development, reducing energy consumption, pollution, and waste.

4. Economic Growth

Smart cities attract businesses and investments, fostering economic growth and job opportunities.

5. Public Engagement

IoT encourages citizen engagement through digital platforms, allowing residents to provide feedback, participate in decision-making, and access services more easily.

Challenges and Considerations

While IoT in smart cities offers numerous benefits, it also poses challenges and considerations:

1. Data Security and Privacy

Collecting and transmitting vast amounts of data from urban environments raise concerns about data security and privacy. Safeguarding this information is crucial.

2. Infrastructure Investment

Implementing IoT in smart cities requires significant investment in infrastructure, such as sensors, connectivity, and data centers.

3. Interoperability

IoT devices and systems must be compatible and standardized to ensure seamless data exchange and integration. Common protocols and standards are essential for achieving this.

4. Regulatory Compliance

Smart city IoT systems must adhere to regulatory requirements, particularly regarding data protection and privacy.

5. Citizen Engagement

Citizen participation is vital in smart cities. It is crucial to ensure that the benefits of IoT are accessible to all residents and that their concerns are addressed.

The Future of IoT in Smart Cities

As technology continues to advance, the future of IoT in smart cities looks promising. Here are some trends and developments to watch for:

1. 5G Connectivity

The rollout of 5G networks will provide faster and more reliable connectivity, enabling real-time data transmission and better support for IoT applications.

2. Artificial Intelligence (AI)

IoT and AI will work hand in hand to analyze vast amounts of data, offering insights for various applications, from traffic management to predictive maintenance.

3. Blockchain Technology

Blockchain can be used to enhance the security and integrity of IoT data in smart cities, ensuring that data remains accurate and private.

4. Autonomous Systems

IoT-enabled smart cities will contribute to the development of autonomous systems, such as self-driving vehicles and drones, improving efficiency and reducing congestion.

5. Enhanced Data Analytics

Advanced data analytics will provide cities with more profound insights into urban patterns, enabling proactive decision-making and real-time response to challenges.

Conclusion

The Internet of Things is revolutionizing smart cities by offering increased efficiency, sustainability, and a higher quality of life for urban residents. Challenges related to data security, infrastructure investment, and regulatory compliance must be addressed to ensure that the benefits of IoT in smart cities are fully realized.

As IoT technology continues to evolve, it will remain a driving force in urban development, offering a glimpse into a future where cities are more efficient, sustainable, and responsive to the needs of their residents, ultimately improving the quality of life for all.

The post Pioneering Progress: The Internet of Things (IoT) in Smart Cities appeared first on IoT Business News.

Platform brings IoT connectivity, sustainability and passenger comfort to growing market segment.

Otis Worldwide Corp., today introduces the Gen3 Core elevator, the newest member of the Gen3 family of digitally native elevators, designed specifically for North America’s growing two-to-six story building segment.

Otis Americas President Jim Cramer, said:

“The Gen3 Core elevator is a game-changer, providing customers an affordable, sustainable product that brings passenger comfort and the benefits of digital connectivity and predictive services to the low-rise segment.”

“We’re excited to bring this elevator to market now, as the growth of metro cities fuels the need for two-to-six story buildings.”

Built off the proven design and flat-belt technology of Otis’ Gen2® family of elevators, which provide smooth, quiet rides, safety, durability and energy-efficiency, the Gen3 Core is equipped with the Otis ONE IoT platform, along with a suite of connected products such as Otis eView in-cab screens and customer options for Application Programming Interface (API) integration into tenant apps and other smart building systems. The platform also features enhanced aesthetics and health products such as cab air purifiers and UVC lights.

The Gen3 Core will be certified with an Environmental Product Declaration and be manufactured at Otis’ North American Manufacturing Center of Excellence in Florence, S.C.

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Innovation meets hydration as T-Mobile helps the Miami startup modernize access to public drinking water with IoT.

• What’s the news: HOPE Hydration (HOPE), maker of smart-city water refill stations, announced T-Mobile as the connectivity and IoT provider for its sustainable HydroStation® technology.
• Why it matters: People are drinking more bottled water than ever and it’s taking a serious toll on our environment. So, HOPE is modernizing access to public drinking water to make clean, filtered water more sustainable and available.
• Who it’s for: Event organizers, municipalities, or anyone looking to serve up free, clean, filtered water with minimal environmental impact.

Today, HOPE Hydration (HOPE), maker of smart-city water refill stations, announced T-Mobile as its connectivity and IoT provider in the U.S.

HOPE will rely on T-Mobile’s award-winning network and IoT solutions to offer an environmentally sustainable model for bringing free, filtered, and temperature-controlled drinking water to the masses at major events and urban hubs around the country.

According to the Container Recycling Institute, 86% of disposable water bottles used in the U.S. become litter ― adding 38 billion disposable water bottles to landfills. Joining forces with leading cities and partners, HOPE is on a mission to reduce waste and ensure that everyone around the world has equal access to free, high-quality drinking water. Winner of the CES 2023 Smart City Innovation Award, HOPE’s HydroStations dispense free Pentair1 Everpure® filtered and chilled water touch-free, to help reduce contaminants.

These tech-savvy water refill stations are dripping with innovation and the latest IoT technology ― and thanks to T-Mobile, HOPE can keep near real-time tabs on all their filling stations to:

• Ensure proper water temperature and filter quality
• Monitor usage and the amount of water dispensed
• Calculate the amount of plastic and carbon dioxide saved
• Manage in-unit advertising displays
• Control settings and scheduled maintenance
• Enable partnering brands to track and achieve sponsorship and sustainability goals
• Deliver critical over-the-air firmware and software updates

“HOPE Hydration is thrilled to work with T-Mobile as our connectivity and IoT provider,” said Jorge Richardson, Founder and CEO of HOPE Hydration.

“We believe access to free, clean water is a human right. This collaboration allows us to bring HOPE, and our stations to the next level while building smart-city solutions for a more sustainable future.”

“We’re all about leveraging our network, scale and resources to be a force for good in the world we live in, and it’s clear that HOPE shares that passion,” said Callie Field, President, T-Mobile Business Group. “Access to clean, sustainable drinking water lies at the core of societal and environmental well-being — and we love how HOPE’s innovative HydroStation technology is creating more access while reducing environmental impact.”

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A new report from Kaleido Intelligence, a leading connectivity market intelligence and consulting firm, has found that smart cities’ data usage will increase by over 140% between 2023 and 2027.

The new report, Cellular IoT Connectivity Series: Smart Cities Opportunities & Forecasts, notes that smart cities have recently been put back onto governments’ agendas following increased drives for sustainability in municipal planning and operations. This is particularly the case where local and national governments are supportive of the initiatives, making Europe and East Asia the biggest markets for these technologies.

Kaleido expects smart city initiatives to intensify in future, with cellular IoT connections growing at a CAGR of 17.9% between 2022 and 2027, to reach over 122 million, with particularly high growth in the next two years.

Cellular Must be Part of a Broader Solution

The highest number of connections will be found in the smart lighting space, and Kaleido anticipates over 161 million lights to be linked to a cellular connection as part of their deployment. However, this and many others will often be served by gateways, with a single cellular connection relaying data to and from many lights, which will rely on non-cellular technology at the endpoints. This emphasises the need for interoperable data protocols, to simplify the transfer of data across technologies.

Kaleido expects relatively high data traffic through these connections even where LPWAN is deployed, because of the number of endpoints relayed through the network. This will require effective edge computing to limit the flood of data to the network; in some cases, we estimate this will reduce data transfer by over 80%. As such, an emphasis needs to be placed on edge computing and other service-based revenue, rather than just monetising connectivity.

Smart Traffic Deployments Lead the Way on Revenue

Kaleido’s report also found that smart traffic management will bring the most connectivity revenue, thanks primarily to the prevalence of video usage. It anticipates airtime revenue in this sector to exceed $900 million by 2027, from $292 million in 2022.

“Smart traffic management in many ways represents a nexus for smart city applications,” remarked research author James Moar.

“Traffic routing decisions can be based on air quality data and smart parking availability. However, care must be taken to abide by data privacy legislation and other relevant laws, which will require an intelligent network to direct data purely on a need-to-know basis.”

The post Smart Cities Cellular Connectivity to Generate Over 143 Petabytes of Data in 2027 appeared first on IoT Business News.

BH Technologies’ Redin product encouraging a more thoughtful approach to waste disposal

BH Technologies, a smart public lighting and waste collection management company, has partnered with IoTerop, an IoT device management software company, to offer optimized waste management solutions to its growing list of global clients.

Its Redin product offers access control for waste containers, encouraging a thoughtful approach to waste disposal through individualized monitoring and billing. This product has been equipped with NB-IoT and LTE-M connectivity, capitalizing on open standards to ensure accessibility for smart cities around the world.

Redin Incentivizes Waste Reduction

BH Technologies’ Redin product sits on top of a waste bin and controls the locking and unlocking of the drum. A registered user can open the container’s drum and deposit their waste, while the device tracks the amount of waste contributed by the user. This will enable individualized billing capabilities that depend on the amount of waste contributed, and is designed to provide a strong motivation for thoughtful disposal, enhanced recycling, and increased composting efforts.

Using Cellular IoT to Develop Future-Proof Products

Since its founding in 1998, BH Technologies has been a pioneer in IoT solutions. They established a reputation for their expertise in radio technology, and enhanced this reputation through the adoption of LoRaWAN technology in 2015. Wanting to expand their offer and maintain their leadership position in lighting and waste management solutions in 2022, BH Technologies used IoTerop’s IOWA software development kit to enable their products with NB-IoT and LTE-M capabilities using the LwM2M protocol.

“BH Technologies has a leadership position in France and is looking to strengthen its position in other European countries. NB-IoT and LTE-M connectivity are a key factor to further penetrate these markets. IoTerop’s IOWA client software development kit provided significant cost-savings by allowing us to fast-track our development process without needing to develop this expertise in-house,” says Taïsei Miura, President of BH Technologies.

BH Technologies will release its Redin product equipped with IoTerop’s IOWA software development kit product by Q4 2022, and will use IoTerop’s ALASKA IoT device management platform to manage, secure, and collect important usage data about their devices.

Hatem Oueslati, CEO of IoTerop, says:

“IoTerop is proud to provide an end-to-end IoT solution that enables BH Technologies to put their product on the market faster, providing cities with a powerful tool to encourage thoughtful waste disposal habits. IoTerop partners with companies like BH Technologies to support sustainability efforts and to offer IoT devices that are based on open standards to Smart Cities.”

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Multi-Purpose Networks and Easy to Install Sensors Provide Granular Visibility Smart Buildings, Smart Cities and Critical Infrastructure.

Senet, Inc., and Iota Communications, Inc. (“IotaComm”) a low power, wide area network (LPWAN) wireless communication and data analytics software company, today announced a partnership to deliver LoRaWAN® through both 915 MHz unlicensed spectrum and through IotaComm’s unique 800 MHz FCC-licensed spectrum network connectivity.

The initial use cases will be focused on Smart Building, Smart City, and Critical Infrastructure applications. With this collaboration, and in addition to its use of the Senet platform for application and device management, IotaComm has also become a Senet Radio Access Network (RAN) operator and Senet LPWAN Virtual Network (LVN) participant, adding coverage to one of the fastest growing LoRaWAN network in North America.

Through a combination of sensors, meters, and its Delphi360 wireless connectivity and data analytics platform, IotaComm provides an end-to-end smart building and smart city solution used by building managers, industrial site managers, and city planners to better manage the health, safety, and sustainability goals of their organizations and facilities. In addition, IotaComm uniquely combines its FCC-licensed spectrum within the LoRaWAN standard to enable carrier-grade, low power wide area connectivity for critical infrastructure applications, such as smart metering and predictive maintenance.

To support growing customer demand for power efficient, battery operated indoor and outdoor smart building sensors, IotaComm operates more than 140 tower sites nationwide and plans to deploy 150 LoRaWAN gateways by 2023. For customers preferring added levels of network and application performance, Senet and IotaComm are collaborating to create a new LoRaWAN service using the 800 MHz licensed spectrum. IotaComm already owns enough 800 MHz spectrum to cover about 90 percent of the US and plans to deploy multi-access gateways to deliver a premium smart building connectivity offering. IotaComm will use Senet’s cloud-based platform to manage both its public LoRaWAN network and private on-premises networks and application deployments using the 800 MHz FCC-licensed spectrum.

“We’re honored to be working alongside of Senet in the quest to provide the wireless connectivity efficiency and flexibility that industries are requiring,” said Terrence DeFranco, CEO, President of IotaComm. “This partnership fully supports our goals of building the largest national, carrier-grade LPWAN dedicated to the IoT. Together with Senet’s network architecture expertise, we’ll deliver real-time data that results in high-value and actionable insights while filling an existing connectivity gap.”

By opening their LoRaWAN gateways to data traffic from all solution providers connecting to the Senet Low Power Wide Area Virtual Network (LVN), IotaComm is contributing to the rapid expansion of public carrier-grade LoRaWAN networks across the US, and generating new IoT services revenue streams. Unique to the Senet LVN are innovative business models designed to deliver unified LoRaWAN connectivity without the need for roaming contracts and the opportunity for participants, like IotaComm, to share in the revenue generated by all end devices connecting to the gateways they’ve deployed regardless of end customer origin.

“Innovation has always been at Senet’s core and our partnership with Iota Communications is another example of Senet leading the market through innovative technology and unique business models that allow users to improve operations and address sustainability goals,” said Bruce Chatterley, CEO at Senet.

“Iota Communications brings significant value and differentiation to our portfolio of RAN Provider and LVN partners, and we look forward to collaborating to deliver groundbreaking network solutions to the commercial building energy management and facility operation markets.”

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Following cycles of hype and disenchantment, the topic of smart cities is re-surfacing. It promises to solve environmental, transportation and sustainability goals while improving the quality of city living. However, not everything is plain sailing. There is much to learn from earlier attempts that focused on pilot or single use-case projects. In many of those instances, little effort went into long-term planning. How would one use case expand to many? What kinds of continuous funding frameworks could sustain on-going operations?

In general, the pressure to deliver quick results in a ‘quick-fix’ mindset. This does not work because smart city infrastructure is a multi-decade undertaking. It sits alongside urban-transport networks, energy distribution systems and sewers.

Over recent years, many smart city projects stalled. They often began with smart streetlights or community Wi-Fi networks. A case in point is the attention-grabbing news story about New Orleans’ smart city plans. There, a single-vendor, single use-case approach came unstuck. This was partly due to questionable procurement processes and single-vendor solution choices. Was this avoidable?

Context for Proper Planning

It can be tempting to begin a smart city project around hard infrastructure. This might be a municipal fibre ring or a mesh network of Wi-Fi hotpots. It could also involve a network of smart lights or CCTV monitors. This does not go far enough because smart city services will rely on data. That leads to better decision making in managing city resources and an ever-expanding set of citizen services. There will obviously be greater use of sensors. Miniaturization and energy-harvesting will lead to sensors embedded in roads and bridges. There will be requirements for industrial-scale data collection as well as software platforms for remote monitoring and control. Think of these new requirements as a progression from ‘hard’ to ‘soft’ infrastructure.

The progression extends even further to data infrastructure. This is another kind of “soft” infrastructure. It would support data sharing, between public and private sector bodies, within an agreed policy framework. Policies for data privacy and security are obviously fundamental. Over time, additional policies will include data-supply and licensing guarantees. These would allow resource managers to control down-stream usage and monetization rights. Data provenance tracking promises to become another requirement in the future. This is due to explainability and accountability in smart city decision-making.

It is not essential to detail or fund these requirements from the outset of a smart city initiative. If ignored, the initiative is likely to founder within a matter of years and fail the multi-decade infrastructure test.

Look Beyond Technology to Change-Management Infrastructure

A good planning framework and a directional roadmap are essential elements of a smart city initiative. It is important to balance the historical preference for vertical solutions, which solve a pressing problem, with a horizontal approach. That means building a handful of general purpose, and re-usable, capabilities. These make it easier to support many applications. This strategy adds leverage to developer teams. It also reduces the risk of spreading technical experts too thinly across multiple vertical systems and integration activities. In effect, this is what a standard accomplishes.

Mandating open standards during the procurement process adds another layer of benefits. It fosters competitive bidding and lowers the risk of technology- and vendor lock-in. That is one lesson for New Orleans.

Open standards also mean that a smart city system can grow over time. Take a waste collection example involving different kinds of collection bins. These might vary in size, depending on location and usage patterns. A city planner has to place bins near take-out restaurants, in public spaces, and low-traffic streets. The use of an open standard would allow a city to source waste bins from different providers. It would also allow city to stagger its roll out over time, responding to changing waste collection patterns and funding availability.

While technology innovation deals with the supply side of the smart city challenge, demand side issues deserve equal attention. In the past, operational staff would wait for weekly or monthly data summaries about city assets. With IoT capabilities, they can monitor and control city assets in real time. This changes the nature of their work. That makes change management and re-skilling necessary complements to all smart city initiatives.

It is also important to include executives and financial managers in this process. Their involvement is critical to embracing the ‘hard-to-soft’ infrastructure roadmap. They are, after all, responsible for funding for future deployments and running costs. That is an important reason to frame the path to new use cases in the language of city administrators. It is also a reason to emphasise long-term rule and adaptable infrastructure over quick-fix projects.

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According to CITiLIGHT, the VELOCITi LMS smart lighting platform has saved 1.29 billion kWh of energy through smart street lighting implementation in more than 100 Indian cities.

Semtech Corporation, announced its collaboration with CITiLIGHT, provider of smart lighting solutions for smart cities, for its VELOCITi LMS lighting management system.

As street lights are fixed assets typically placed 40 to 50 meters apart from each other, VELOCITi LMS features Semtech’s LoRa® devices and the LoRaWAN® standard to communicate large packets of data over a long range. Per CITiLIGHT, more than 1 million street lights have been automated with the smart lighting solution that have saved up to 1.29 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy in more than 100 cities.

“Safety is a critical part of any city. As we move toward smarter cities, our view of citizen safety also needs to evolve. This is where city street lighting plays an important role. The spots in the city that are dark or less brightly lit are the ones that are most vulnerable to crime and accidents, and VELOCITi LMS is a solution to this issue,” said Aman Chawla, CEO of CITiLIGHT.

“Controlling street lighting is a unique challenge which entails work on both the hardware and network of the system. Semtech’s LoRa devices and LoRaWAN were the ideal solution for smart cities as the technology is able to solve both hardware and network needs due to each street light requiring to be metered, while accounting for additional data such as daylight, motion and temperature.”

The VELOCITi LMS system is able to keep street lights connected and monitored in real time, from anywhere on the globe, without any dependence on field personnel. Any commands given to the street lights, like change of lighting schedule or change in intensity, are executed within seconds as the system offers less than five second command latency and 0.5-1% accuracy on metered data according to CITiLIGHT. Semtech’s LoRa devices and the LoRaWAN standard complement the street light system as the technology can support larger data packets based on a city’s needs and communication over a long range.

“Real-time analytics are aiding in the growth of smart cities,” said Marc Pégulu, vice president of IoT product marketing and strategy for Semtech’s Wireless and Sensing Products Group. “Semtech’s LoRa devices and the LoRaWAN standard are adding intelligence and networking to street lighting that is creating better and more sustainable smart cities. This, in turn, creates a smarter planet that also improves lives of citizens globally through the reduction in energy usage.”

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Leaders in Low Power Networking and Central Management Systems Provide Ideal Solution for Smart Street Lighting.

Dhyan, the device management experts, today announced a turnkey solution partnership with Senet to manage smart streetlights powered by Senet’s LoRaWAN® network service.

Senet is a leading provider of cloud-based software and services platforms for the on-demand build-out of Internet of Things (IoT) networks and operates the largest public carrier-grade LoRaWAN network in the US. With interoperability testing completed, the turnkey nature of this solution makes it easy to add smart streetlights to existing LoRaWAN networks such as those deployed for water utility Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) projects or other municipal and enterprise applications.

LoRaWAN is a long range low power, Wide Area Network protocol designed to wirelessly connect low power devices to the internet in networks of any size, and targets key IoT requirements such as bi-directional communication, end-to-end security, mobility and localization services. Its long range and low power make it ideal for smart street lighting projects, as it provides a greater connectivity range than Zigbee or Wi-SUN without the expense of cellular.

Senet pioneered the use of LoRaWAN for commercial IoT deployments in the US, with significant success deploying high-capacity networks for municipal water utility districts across the United States. Dhyan’s central management system technology is in use in IoT deployments worldwide, including a growing number of smart street light networks. This partnership and integration bring together two leaders in hardware, software, and cloud-based network and device management to create a world-class smart street lighting solution.

The two companies are currently collaborating on commercial deployments and exploring Proof-of-Concept installations with several municipalities. Both organizations will also be attending the upcoming Smart Cities Connect conference in Columbus, Ohio, April 4-7. Senet will be participating in a workshop titled Sensorize Your City!, Monday, April 4th from 1-5pm EST.

“The technical attributes of LoRaWAN make it ideal for public lighting systems which can be a valuable anchor application for smart cities or easily added to an existing municipal LoRaWAN network deployment,” said Bruce Chatterley, CEO of Senet.

“The testing we’ve completed with the Dhyan street light controller provides municipalities with a proven solution to improve the quality of public lighting while also enabling a foundation for future efficiency and operations management through the use of additional IoT sensors.”

“Dhyan is pleased to be working with Senet as their experience with LoRaWAN dovetails nicely with Dhyan’s StreetMan smart streetlighting management system,” said Prakash Ramadass, Dhyan’s VP Smart Cities. “This is a great solution for cities looking for a low-cost, long-range smart streetlighting solution.”

The Dhyan family of central management software for the IoT market consists of StreetMan for managing smart streetlights, LightMan for managing smart area lights such as in campuses, parking lots, buildings, and warehouses, and CitiMan for managing smart city IoT assets.

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Developed by Urban Control, the Urban Node 324 is said to be plug&play simple to install and can scale cost-effectively from one streetlight up to millions.

Nordic Semiconductor today announces that leading smart city solutions provider, Urban Control, has specified a Nordic nRF9160 multi-mode NB-IoT/LTE-M System-in-Package (SiP) into each of its Urban Node 324 city streetlight LED luminaire controllers.

In operation, each Urban Node 324 simply plugs into an industry-standard ‘Zhaga’ LED lighting socket and connects over the local cellular IoT network where it can then be remotely controlled by any smart city Central Management System (CMS) that is based on the common ‘TALQ’ smart city standard.

Urban Control says its Urban Node 324 controller delivers all the benefits of smart city LED street lighting. These include the ability to precisely control brightness and thus energy consumption and costs depending on actual local conditions; the ability to dynamically respond to sudden changes in pedestrian numbers or road traffic; the ability to monitor energy consumption in real-time; and the ability to identify and even preempt faults and precisely target maintenance crews – again reducing operating costs and unnecessary maintenance via environmentally-polluting, service-van inspections.

The operational simplicity of each Urban Node 324 comes from them being engineered to work via a lightweight-machine-to-machine (LwM2M) platform called ‘ALASKA’ from award-winning scarce resource IoT device management and security specialist, IoTerop. This leverages the two most common smart city IoT standards: ‘uCIFI’ and ‘TALQ’. It additionally uses state-of-the-art embedded design engineering to minimize on-air bandwidth and get power consumption levels low enough to support battery-powered smart city sensors and devices.

Urban Control Innovation & Development Director, Miguel Lira, explains:

“Unlike traditional smart city lighting installations that require a specialized network to be built, the Urban Node 324 works straight out-of-the-box just like a smartphone.”

“This makes it commercially and technologically viable for any size installation because it does not require the operator to build their own wireless IoT network or become a wireless IoT network operator themselves. Critically, this includes robust security that combines the superb security features of the Nordic nRF9160 SiP and the IoTerop ALASKA Cloud IoT device management platform.”

Lira adds: “So suddenly all the benefits of smart lighting are now open to small clusters of streetlights in retail parks, hotel chains, office branches and university campuses, all the way up to massive, multi-million node capital city-sized installations. This is truly a game changer in the smart city streetlighting industry.”

“Early non-cellular IoT smart city lighting installations were invaluable for showing the potential and value of the smart city,” adds Olivier Carmona, Head of Sales & Marketing at IoTerop. “But they were also almost all based on proprietary technology that forced city authorities to have to build their wireless IoT networks and become expert wireless IoT network managers: neither of which they wanted to do or become.”

“In contrast, cellular IoT leverages the network infrastructure of cellular networks that are already in every town, city and significant population center worldwide. And by partnering with us, Urban Control has created a smart city lighting control solution that could not be easier for non-wireless IoT experts to install, operate and maintain. And by using the highly integrated, single device Nordic nRF9160 SiP: a solution that could not be more optimized for resource constrained wireless IoT smart city devices, sensors, and applications that extend way beyond smart streetlighting control. Examples include local air and noise pollution measurement, and camera-based traffic management.”

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Ayyeka unleashes the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to dramatically improve the data quality and reliability of Internet of Things (IoT) for critical infrastructure.

Ayyeka Inc. has a pioneering technology to transform smart cities from a futuristic promise to an everyday reality.

The promise of smart cities — which leverages IoT technologies for digitalization of critical infrastructure — has been slow to materialize. Data quality and reliability are among the top impediments to smart cities and IoT deployments at large. Ayyeka’s AI Data Curator solves this.

There are many moving parts to IoT projects, ranging from sensors through edge devices to cloud platforms, making it easy for things to go wrong. In large-scale IoT projects, it is not uncommon to have data quality and reliability issues that render the data useless. Whether it’s gaps in the data, unstable readings, or the sensor is just stuck at a certain value–the user now has only two options: either clean the data or give up on it. Detecting, fixing, and overcoming those issues is a labor-intensive process. On large-scale IoT deployments, this is just not feasible and often delays or even fails the entire project.

Ayyeka has automated this process by harnessing the power of AI, delivering more reliable data, and saving enormous amounts of time and manual labor. At the click of a button, Ayyeka’s AI Data Curator will detect, report, and automatically fix IoT sensor data for better decision outcomes and regulatory compliance.

In industries where decisions are anchored with data, that data must be solid. Yair Poleg, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Ayyeka, explained that

“Data quality is often overlooked in the proof-of-concept (PoC) phase of IoT deployments, but it becomes a huge problem when scaling up from the PoC phase to full-size deployments. The AI Data Curator alleviates this pain point.”

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NNNCo partners with technology provider Wellness TechGroup to roll out one of LoRaWAN®’s largest smart street lighting projects in the world.

Sydney-based National Narrowband Network Company (NNNCo), the 100% IoT telco, has signed a contract with technology provider Wellness TechGroup, to provide IoT network coverage to 70,000 smart streetlights in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay.

The project will cover 200 square kilometres and provide smart street lighting to more than 1.3 million people, improving community and road safety, and reducing carbon emissions by up to 80%. This initiative will also establish an infrastructure-based network that can accommodate other smart city initiatives.

NNNCo, Wellness TechGroup and their partners will replace Montevideo’s existing lighting system with LED technology and roll out a powerful and interoperable remote management system, which is designed to reduce carbon emissions by 31,500 tonnes of CO2 per year, a decrease of approximately 80%. The project will also improve the quality of public lighting service and provide greater efficiency and operations management to the whole city.

The Smart Street Lighting project will see the deployment of 70,000 new streetlights with LED technology using Wellness TechGroup’s CMS WeLight Manager software, LoRaWAN® Actis Nema 7 LPC nodes and NNNCo’s LoRaWAN® network. Smart Street lighting provides a unique opportunity to improve public and road safety, energy efficiency and customer amenity via network and application management software and the integration with other urban smart applications like waste management and water conservation.

NNNCo, Australia’s leading LoRaWAN® network operator with a carrier licence, provides a scalable IoT network service and platform to enable enterprise-grade solutions for businesses and the government. LoRaWAN®, now an international ITU standard, is a proven, scalable low-power, wide-area networking protocol technology that wirelessly connects devices to the internet and manages communication between end-node devices and network gateways.

Rob Zagarella, NNNCo CEO and Co-Founder, said:

“This is a milestone contract in the establishment of NNNCo’s LoRaWAN® network as one of the world’s leading networks for smart streetlight use cases and we hope to facilitate similar projects in Australia and in other countries in the near future.”

“This is a great example of Australian technology driving global Sustainable Development Goals”, added Mr Zagarella.

Wellness TechGroup and NNNCo will be able to provide added services to the city of Montevideo as the contract signed include the opportunity to bring third parties customers across the same gateways into the LoRaWAN network. The Australian network provider will be able to service customers across the whole city, using the NNNCo N2N-DL data aggregation layer and the NNNCo N-Tick device interoperability programme.

Wellness TechGroup will roll out 70,000 Actis Plus Nema 7 LCP nodes for remote control of light points. The Actis Plus Nema 7 nodes will connect with WeLight Manager TALQ certified CMS, powerful and leading-edge software that will provide real-time information on all the data from the intelligent public lighting service. Luminaries become effectively a data-enabled lighting server, true central nodes and form part of a smart city IoT ecosystem, beyond lighting.

David Garcia, Wellness TechGroup CEO, said:
“We have deployed more than 300 smart lighting projects worldwide, where we are already managing almost 1 million points of lights in municipalities remotely”.

“Our technology must help reduce the costs, improve the efficiency and environmental impact and provide a better service, but it must also serve citizens by improving their day-to-day. Montevideo will now have a more versatile lighting system, capable of responding to events and unforeseen events, facilitating a feeling of more security on the streets”.

Montevideo’s new public lighting system will be one of the largest smart street lighting projects over LoRaWAN to date. LoRaWAN technology was selected to ensure a low total cost of ownership, advanced technical attributes, high security, flexible network deployment models, optimisation of battery life and the ability to access a fast-growing ecosystem of other solutions.

“I congratulate NNNCo on this massive LoRaWAN deployment, which exemplifies how 2021 has truly been the year of scale for the LoRaWAN standard,” said Donna Moore, CEO and Chairwoman of the LoRa Alliance®. “This project demonstrates the strong value of LoRaWAN, first in its flexible deployment for street lighting, and second, as a means to positively impact the environment, people’s lives and business efficiency. I look forward to following the progress of this project and seeing the positive impact that NNNco and LoRaWAN bring to Montevideo.”

NNNCo and Wellness Techgroup are investee companies of Enzen, a global knowledge practice that provides consulting, technologies, governments, non-governmental organisations and not-for-profits. This contract shows the synergies of both companies in the areas of IoT, smart cities and sustainability.

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Recently, SENSORO, an IoT and artificial intelligence unicorn company from China, announced the release of a new ESG* solution brand named “SENSORO SOLUTION”.

The program aims at climate monitoring, ecological protection, livelihood improvement, animal welfare, garbage classification and other applications.

Its smart city benchmark case has been built in Yichang, Hubei Province. SENSORO is relying on its independent research and development capabilities in the AIoT field to implement the modern service concept of sustainable development, which contributes to the digital and intelligent development of China’s urban and rural areas.

Technology Rooted in Reality with Multiple Values

As a city-level data technology service provider, SENSORO has received repeated attention from the capital market, and also attracted many research scholars, doctors, and other talents to join. Through independent research and development, the team has created an end-to-end, integrated IoT and AI technology and product system, including smart sensing terminals, IoT communication base stations, chips and edge computing servers, and a global data visualisation service platform.

SENSORO ESG smart solutions have been implemented on a large scale in Yichang, Hubei Province. It has played a role in many areas, including COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control, weather monitoring and early warning, Yangtze River ecological protection, care for vulnerable groups, grassroot-level inclusive medical care, animal welfare protection, garbage classification. SENSORO is harnessing the power of the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence to direct urban construction towards a new stage of low-carbon, energy-saving, high-efficiency and intelligence, using revolutionary smart data solutions to add vigor and vitality to traditional industries and economic development.

Technological Innovation Services for Real

Technology is people-oriented. Dazhong Tao, a local resident in Yichang, Hubei Province, where SENSORO’s digital service is located, was deeply moved. He said: “These high technologies have provided us with enormous convenience in our everyday life, making our lives more secure. For example, we can easily access health service.”

SENSORO CEO Tony Zhao also said: “Our hope is to use ESG as a guide to offer more digital solutions for the environment, society and governance. We are willing to work with partners in various industries to build a more environmentally friendly, safer, livable and smart city. Furthermore, we have already witness such changes taking place now. Changes will continue to happen in the future.”

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Birdz, a subsidiary of Veolia and pioneer in environmental IoT, and Sensoneo, a specialist in Smart Waste solutions for cities and businesses, announced a strategic partnership aimed at accelerating their joint development in the international market of intelligent management and recovery of waste.

A need to optimize waste collection for better management

“The partnership with Sensoneo started from a simple observation. In France as well as globally, the current waste recovery offer only covers very little of the collection part”, explains Christian Carrara, at Birdz. “Waste is collected at predefined times which are in fact not correlated with the actual rate of filling of the dumpsters. Optimizing collection would allow communities to reduce costs, avoid unnecessary travel to improve their environmental performance, and provide better service to their fellow citizens to prevent them from finding themselves in front of dumpsters full.”

To support cities and businesses in this issue, Birdz, already acclaimed by more than 3,300 cities for its environmental IoT solutions, is today forging a partnership with Sensoneo, an international company based in Slovakia that operates in 60 countries, and whose solutions are aimed to make the world a cleaner place by improving waste management. Through several dedicated Smart Waste offers (Asset Management, Waste Monitoring and Collection Planner), Sensoneo succeeds in reducing waste collection routes by 30-63% which directly impacts emissions and fuel and enables customers to monitor actual waste production with 97% off accuracy.

This partnership will allow the two players to combine their expertise to bring an innovative and complete Smart Waste solution to the international market. The offer will initially focus on Voluntary Contribution Points (PAVs – street bins with either public or private access) and will then extend to access control issues, particularly interesting for local authorities setting up incentive pricing systems according to the principle of polluter pays.

Martin Basila, CEO & Co-founder of Sensoneo, says:

“We greatly appreciate the opportunity to partner with Birdz. They have succeeded in becoming leaders in environmental IoT and we believe that the combination of the know-how of our parties has the power to tangibly transform the way cities and businesses operate when it comes to waste. We look forward to the opportunities that our cooperation will bring.”

With a historic presence in the Smart Water market, Birdz has been extending its expertise to all Smart City issues for several years to support its customers in meeting the challenge of digital transformation. With more than 3.4 million connected objects deployed, Birdz collects and analyses 350 million pieces of data every day to identify the biggest ecological problems and provide concrete solutions.

Following the announcement of this partnership, Birdz and Sensoneo aim to launch a joint offer on the market by the first quarter of 2022.

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GreenCityZen’s solution and Sigfox’s 0G network provide the Marseille Métropole sanitation department (Seramm) with an economical and ecological connected storm drain network.

Eco-startup GreenCityZen, a greentech pioneer in IoT for industry and smart city, has selected Sigfox to connect 5,000 downspouts (entry points into the river network) on the Marseille sewerage network.

The technology from Sigfox, one of the world’s leading providers of IoT communication services and the originator of the 0G network, allows Seramm to retrieve data from sensor-equipped gutters to improve their performance and reduce the number of interventions.

Although drains are designed to collect rainwater, they also collect waste abandoned on the public highway, which causes operational problems and pollution. Drains clogged by waste can no longer fulfill their primary purpose, and there is also an ecological impact as waste accumulated in the drains transfers into the natural environment during rainfall.

To address these issues, GreenCityZen has developed the HummBox platform for the continuous monitoring of stormwater drains in sewerage networks. The application detects waste levels, and can therefore “decarbonize” operation and cleaning of gutters, as it is no longer necessary to travel to determine if a storm drain is full. The startup called on Sigfox France and its 0G network to collect the data sent back by the sensors placed in drains in a real-time, simple and sustainable way.

Self-powered sensors connect directly to the Internet via the Sigfox network, and each drain is logged in advance within the application where details are recorded, including: a description, images, the condition of the instrumentation, its fill rate and any necessary interventions. Before this collaboration began, the city of Marseille carried out 50,000 inspection visits, only to clean 50% of the drains, while others lay empty.

Deploying IoT has transformed Seramm operators’ jobs by providing better data on the drains across the city and therefore immediate visibility of the assets requiring maintenance, as well as a better insight into the type of maintenance required without needing an initial site visit. In addition, the data collected provides useful statistics to the sanitation department and ultimately improves its performance.

Alexandre Boudonne, director of operations at GreenCityZen, said:
“The IoT, the latest technology in the digital transformation of our economies, has had a considerable impact. At GreenCityZen we see it as an opportunity for the environment and, with the support of Sigfox, we have been able to implement new use cases to improve the performance of the Seramm while helping to preserve our planet.”

“Sigfox’s mission is to digitize the physical world while committing to harnessing and delivering the benefits of IoT in ways that sustain and respect our environment. This collaboration with GreenCityZen is particularly well suited to this mission and allows us to support a high-potential “made in France” startup,” adds Patrick Cason, CEO of Sigfox France.

By September 2021, in Marseille, 2,000 drains were already equipped with the HummBox solution and connected to the Sigfox network. Another 3,000 should follow by 2022.

These intelligent solutions should soon be rolled out nationally and then exported internationally. SUEZ has also called on GreenCityZen to install other types of sensors in vacuum sewer networks. The objective is to monitor the frequency of valve opening and report any problems to the operator. The Sigfox 0G network allows the sensors to communicate, even though they are sometimes buried or under a cast iron plate.

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By leveraging LoRaWAN® connectivity and the data analytics from SAS, the Town of Cary will be able to better monitor floods and provide additional community services to its citizens.

Semtech Corporation announced its collaboration with SAS and the Town of Cary, North Carolina. Improving the overall quality of life for its citizens is the primary mission of the Town of Cary, all while faced with the challenge of minimizing environmental footprint, and reducing waste.

The Town of Cary, SAS Institute and Semtech are coming together to build a unique Center of Excellence focused on technology solutions that will positively impact the lives of Cary’s citizens. Through the collaboration, the Town and two companies will facilitate the development and deployment of edge-to-Cloud Internet of Things (IoT) solutions, solve real world challenges and make Cary the benchmark for other municipalities to replicate.

A previous SAS and Cary IoT collaboration to address stormwater flood alerting has already received multiple smart city innovation awards, including the 2020 IDC Smart Cities North American Awards (Smart Water Category) and the 2020 Government Innovation Award (Leveraging IoT for Increased Flood Protection). According to NEEF, a majority of U.S. coastal areas will likely to be threatened by 30+ flooding days each year. With more floods happening each year and factors influencing climate change, technology can help mitigate and solve these environmental challenges.

“This partnership represents an exciting new chapter in our IoT journey,” said Nicole Raimundo, chief information officer at the Town of Cary. “We see so much potential for community-focused solutions in this collaboration with Semtech and SAS. We believe that IoT technology has amazing potential to streamline services, making us more agile and responsive. It will help us continue to meet citizen needs in surprising new ways, and we’re honored by these companies’ commitment to improving lives through innovation in the government space.”

IoT solutions powered by SAS, built on Microsoft Azure, provide real-time insights into data and analytics generated across multiple use cases that help solve specific challenges and offer an interconnected world with better ways to monitor and safeguard communities, people and resources.

“IoT is forcing a fundamental shift of business and operational strategies as organizations adopt new models for agile IT, edge analytics and platform-based security,” said Jason Mann, vice president of IoT at SAS. “The Town of Cary adopting SAS and Semtech solutions will expand their current services while building a digital infrastructure to better meet the needs of their citizens.”

The end-to-end solutions, incorporating LoRaWAN® connectivity with the industry leading SAS IoT analytics platform, will simplify the development of IoT solutions that are focused on solving some of the biggest challenges facing the world today: natural disasters, hunger and sustainability.

Alistair Fulton, vice president and general manager of Semtech’s Wireless and Sensing Products Group, said:

“The Center of Excellence will be a leading example of how cities and towns in the U.S. can leverage IoT data and analytics for a smarter, safer planet. In addition, deploying these IoT solutions will create better community services for their residents.”

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The ALASKA Lightweight Machine to Machine (LwM2M) platform works with uCIFI and TALQ standards to enable smart city solutions that are interoperable, scalable and secure.

Urban Control, a leading provider of smart city solutions, has embedded ALASKA, a Lightweight Machine to Machine (LwM2M) platform from IoTerop, a leader in IoT device management, to manage its smart city devices.

The first implementation of this platform is the Urban Node 324 cellular IoT streetlight controller, launched earlier this month.

LwM2M, uCIFI and TALQ – the importance of standards

Using LwM2M enables Smart Cities to leverage uCIFI, the first unified data model that was created to address IoT interoperability for smart city applications. Additionally, the TALQ Consortium has defined a globally accepted interface standard for smart city device networks, meaning that a single CMS can configure, control, command and monitor heterogeneous smart city device networks. These three standards create a powerful tool that allows Smart Cities to be truly interoperable and scalable.

Constrained devices can more easily be connected, and the optimization of bandwidth makes it more efficient and less expensive to connect. Devices modeled include streetlights, water meters and distribution monitors, waste management devices, parking meters, traffic monitors, air-quality monitors, smart buildings, as well as safety and security devices.

Adherence to globally-recognized standards is imperative, as it allows for the optimization of bandwidth constraints and provides a reduction of data volume used by urban smart objects. Device security is also a considerable benefit in an era when cyber security has never been so important. ALASKA follows devices throughout their entire lifecycles, from activation to firmware updates to decommissioning, all managed remotely.

Miguel Lira, Innovation and Development Director at Urban Control, said:
“Selecting a LwM2M interface that adheres to global standards was important for us, as it offers our customers game-changing benefits that are important for this specific sector.”

“By selecting IoTerop’s ALASKA, we are empowering our customers to diminish bandwidth usage, decrease their operational uptime by automating operations, and ultimately, rationalize their long-term investment in urban connected solutions.”

“We understand that security, scalability, and interoperability are crucial aspects for any smart city’s long-term success. By using our ALASKA LwM2M interface, cities will be able to see a much quicker return on investment without the need to deploy a heavy infrastructure. ALASKA will address battery-powered solutions and devices in the most difficult-to-reach places, which are normally costly and logistically challenging to address,” adds Hatem Oueslati, CEO of IoTerop.

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A leading Digital Twin provider and an IoT exponent are jointly developing a technology solution to transition Las Vegas to zero carbon emissions.

A significant area of downtown Las Vegas will leverage advanced 5G networking, plus cutting edge IoT and urban Digital Twin technology to vastly improve mobility, air quality, noise pollution, water management, and emissions from major buildings.

Las Vegas CIO (Chief Innovation Officer) Michael Sherwood said: “Digital Twins are rapidly becoming vital to how cities are run. Now in Las Vegas we will have a city-scale digital twin that is driven by the physical environment, and ultimately letting us control key systems through it.”

“This will give us new levels of insights and control to benefit city planners, residents, and businesses. We’re setting the benchmark for cities around the world to become smarter, efficient, safer and more sustainable.”

Cityzenith – market leader in its sector – will provide the project’s Digital Twin technology as part of its ‘Clean Cities – Clean Future‘ initiative to implement its SmartWorldOS Digital Twin platform in major world cities to drive down urban emissions and significantly improve cost efficiencies for local building owners.

Las Vegas is the second city to participate in the Clean Cities – Clean Future initiative after New York, with Phoenix and several other major cities expected to follow soon.

Cityzenith CEO Michael Jansen said: “We are excited to partner with the forward-leaning city of Las Vegas in this ground-breaking partnership. We are confident that this seminal project will demonstrate the combined power of Digital Twin and IoT technology working together to transform mobility, walkability, and emissions/air pollution.”

“Among our many goals, we are keen to demonstrate how the Las Vegas Digital Twin project will help local building owners of any scale dramatically reduce operating costs and emissions for little to no investment.”

Project partner Terbine brings together and contextualizes IoT data from local government agencies, building operators, transportation systems, vehicle manufacturers and more, to provide the high volumes of sensor information needed by the urban Digital Twin.

The partners will unveil the first iteration of the ‘Las Vegas Digital Twin’ at the annual CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas (January 5-8th 2022).

Jansen said: “Terbine’s high-performance IoT data exchange is a must-have for this kind of project, and I’m delighted the company is on board.”

Terbine Founder and CEO David Knight said: “Transitioning our home city into a clean, sustainable, and more attractive place to live and visit is a fantastic opportunity, and we’re very excited to work with the City of Las Vegas and Cityzenith. What we’re pioneering here represents a template for how other cities can enable sustainability and a better quality of life for their citizens.”

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Transforming scheduled and preventive lift maintenance regimes into digitalised and predictive maintenance, the AGIL Smart Lift Monitoring solution addresses key challenges in the industry while elevating standards in lift safety and reliability.

ST Engineering today announced that its non-intrusive AGIL Smart Lift Monitoring solution will be progressively installed on lifts in Singapore starting this year, in one of the largest scale deployments of a smart lift monitoring solution to date.

The solution enables 24/7 remote lift status monitoring and diagnostics, providing centralised, real-time visibility of lift operations across different manufacturer brands, models and locations to the building owner, lift operators and technicians. This enables early anomaly detection, reporting and resolution to enhance operational efficiency, lift safety and reliability.

Co-developed with established lift measurement device manufacturer Henning GmbH & Co. KG (Henning), the cloud-based AGIL Smart Lift Monitoring solution employs remote diagnostics and edge analytics which is backed by proven smart sensor technology. Brandagnostic and compatible with most manufacturer brands and models, the plug and play solution eliminates the need to integrate with existing lift systems, allowing quick installation in a flexible and scalable manner that supports multi-tenancy, multi-asset and multi-site management. Additionally, its patented rope sensor technology allows for quick deployment and enables technicians to perform lift rope tensioning accurately and efficiently to optimise rope life.

Yao Shih Jih, Head of Smart Utilities and Infrastructure at ST Engineering, said:

“Large-scale lift maintenance is both complex and laborious, yet there is little room for error as every lift needs to be maintained at the highest standard for safety. The AGIL Smart Lift Monitoring solution provides unparalleled transparency of lift performance data which will significantly change the way lifts are being maintained, delivering improved reliability, safety and productivity while alleviating the industry’s manpower issues.”

“The AGIL Smart Lift Monitoring solution is a great example of how our innovations are helping industries digitalise to create new value and seize new possibilities.”

How it works

Smart sensors are installed on the lifts for multi-edge computing and data collection, and undergo sense-making at the secure and unified Internet of Things (IoT) platform. This generate real-time insights on lift performance and provides predictive analytics of individual lift components for maintenance planning that leads to reduced lift downtime and optimised component service life. These improve efficiency and reduce unnecessary costs and wastage, leading to more sustainable lift maintenance in the long-term.

Integrated with a mobile application, the AGIL Smart Lift Monitoring solution provides real-time alerts and incident updates on the go, including remote diagnostics that identify possible causes and provide recommendations for more accurate and quicker diagnoses of lift issues.

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According to a new research report from the analyst firm Berg Insight, the number of waste collection points fitted with smart waste sensor technology reached 657,000 worldwide in 2020 (excluding China).

Growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29.8 percent, the number will increase to 2.4 million by 2025. These wirelessly connected fill-level sensors can be either pre-integrated into waste bins and containers, for example as a smart bin offering, or retrofitted on existing collection points. Europe accounts for more than 50 percent of the installed base with markets such as the Benelux, France, the UK, Spain and the Nordics in the lead.

The installed base in the North American market meanwhile reached 209,000 units in 2020. The Rest of World market excluding China will at the same time have the highest growth rate of 36.5 percent and reach a total of more than half a million installed sensors in 2025.

Having seen some outstanding growth in the private sector in North America, US-based Compology has emerged as the world’s leading smart waste sensor technology vendor, accounting for around 22 percent of the total installed base (excluding China) at the end of 2020. The US-based smart bin provider Bigbelly ranked as the second largest player while the Finnish smart waste sensor and software specialist Enevo was the third largest in terms of installed base.

The top 10 smart waste sensor technology vendors also included Waste Vision from the Netherlands; BH Technologies and the SUEZ subsidiary Sigrenea from France; Sensoneo from Slovakia; TST Sistemas from Spain; Evreka from Turkey; and Ecube Labs from South Korea. Together, the top ten vendors accounted for around 50 percent of the global installed base of waste collection points featuring smart waste sensor technology. The companies in the market oftentimes focus on specific customer segments and therefore face varying degrees of competition from each other.

Along with market growth and the increasing number of market participants, many companies are now evolving their offerings to distinguish themselves from the crowd.

Levi Ostling, smart cities analyst, Berg Insight, said:
“While the early days of the industry focused primarily on the deployment of the fill-level sensor technology itself, it is now clear that the sophistication and breadth of the accompanying software is becoming a key success factor in the smart waste sensor technology market.”

Cellular communications remains the most popular connectivity technology choice, accounting for three quarters of the connected waste collection points in 2020.

Mr. Ostling concluded:

“Cellular LPWA (NB-IoT and LTE-M) is expected to surpass conventional cellular 2G/3G/4G technologies as the leading connectivity type for smart waste sensors in 2023 and hit the milestone of 1 million connected end points during 2025.”

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According to a new research report from the IoT analyst firm Berg Insight, the installed base of urban air quality monitoring devices reached 73,000 units in 2020 and will grow at a CAGR of 34 percent to reach 315,000 units in 2025.

This number refers to any type of networked outdoor air quality monitoring device that in some way is used for supplementary air quality monitoring purposes in cities and communities. Traditional regulatory monitoring stations and devices intended for personal use only are thus not included.

The last five years has seen a rapidly growing commercial availability of increasingly small and low-cost air quality monitoring devices that enable deployments in large numbers at reasonable costs, thereby addressing the shortcomings of traditional monitoring networks which consist of highly advanced and very expensive monitoring stations that typically can be found at only one or a few locations in major cities and therefore have very low sensitivity for local variations in air quality.

Levi Ostling, smart cities analyst at Berg Insight, said:

“Many cities have now finally started to realize the immense value that IoT-enabled and relatively low-cost and small-sized air quality monitors could bring by facilitating substantial improvements in the spatial and temporal resolution of urban air quality data.”

During the past year, the interest in air quality monitoring solutions in the smart city context has reached entirely new levels, boosted by news about potential relationships between air pollution and Covid-19 as well as by record-breaking wildfire seasons in the US and Australia.

The market for non-regulatory devices is however in a nascent stage and the number of market participants is growing at a day-by-day basis. Companies that have emerged as leading vendors include for example Environmental Instruments (AQMesh), Airly, Envea, Libelium, Kunak Technologies and Breeze Technologies from Europe; Clarity Movement, Aclima, PurpleAir and Met One from North America; and Aeroqual, Phoenix Robotix (Aurassure), Oizom and Sailhero from Asia-Pacific. The range of devices available in the market span from near reference-grade solutions to very low-cost devices with little to none supporting software and services.

Although advancements are being made, there is still a lack of standards and certifications related to non-regulatory air quality monitoring devices. The level of performance of air quality monitoring solutions is of great importance as air quality data is often used to inform decisions that have direct consequences for people’s health and wellbeing. At this stage, cities thus need to be wary in their implementation strategies for these new types of devices.

“If too many cities hastily adopt solutions that turn out to be of poor quality, the industry is at risk of inducing a general mistrust in low-cost air quality sensing technology – a hurdle that could be difficult to overcome once established,” concluded Mr. Ostling.

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