Tim Kannegieter

Interesting article here on NSW Health: https://www.pulseitmagazine.com.au/australian-ehealth/4395-nsw-health-rolling-out-wireless-core-platform-for-mobility-and-iot

Windows IoT Core Services has been announced building on the original launched in 2015. See https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2018/06/05/windows-10-iot-tomorrows-iot-today/#OhHzc9pFA4Y6gc3C.97

See https://developer.android.com/things/get-started/kits

Two-way communication in Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) is automatically better than one-way communication, surely? Not necessarily, according to the presenter of our next webinar on remote sensing. In fact, there are cases where one way sensing is a far superior approach, such as most metering applications. In preparing for this webinar I met with Mark Halliwell, Business Development Manager at Taggle Systems. In discussing Taggle’s approach to IoT, their decision to focus on one way sensing really stood out. The reasoning is pretty simple. There are many applications where you simply don’t need two way communication and having it introduces more complications than any benefits it might bring. For example security is much simpler with one way communication as there is no way an external attack can be launched on a device via the network. Secondly, power consumption is much less, as the device does not have to be constantly listening out for messages. There are many other nuances in the one-way vs two-way debate, which Mark will address in the webinar. But one other feature of the Taggle system really stood out. Unlike most other LPWAN systems out there, the entire technology has was developed in house, here in Australia. This is not surprising when you look at the pedigree of the founders, which includes the developers of the world’s first 5GHz WiFi integrated circuits. Image: Taggle's MRC-1 transmitter designed for use with the most common water meter in use, the Elster V100. Curtesy Taggle One thing for sure is that competition in the automatic meter reading industry is rapidly heating up, with just about every IoT vendor and LPWAN consultant pitching to gain market share. This is particularly so in the water industry which is opening up rapidly with utilities across the country and globally rushing to capture the benefits of IoT, which include everything from cost reductions in meter reading to deferment of capital intensive investments in upgrading water infrastructure. With such competition, it’s no longer enough to simply offer IoT solutions. They need to be superior to other IoT solutions and this is where Taggles believe it has an advantage. By developing the technology in-house, from the chip level up and focusing on the one-way approach, it is able to optimize the solution at all levels. Taggle has made a big bet on the question of one way versus two way communication and it appears to be paying off. Mark claims they have the largest IoT deployment in Australia, currently taking over 3 million water meter readings per day. The company has also embraced the growing “as a Service” movement, by owning and maintaining its own LPWAN network so the customer only pays for the data and associated services rather than owning its own communication infrastructure. Software packages are provided that process the data for reporting and visualization purposes, including apps for end users. A great case study on a Taggle deployment at Mackay Regional Council (MRC) was reported in Utility Magazine, which featured some impressive results, way before the term IoT became trendy. In 2016, a demand management campaign coupled with the Taggle system saw individual consumer water consumption in Mackay reduce from 240L/d to 210L/d, contributing to the estimated deferment of a new water treatment plant from 2020 to 2032 and helping hold price increases to zero. In that same year, around 1500 lead notifications were sent to customers and reducing the average duration of a leak from 150 days to 60 days. Of course there are many other applications of IoT technology in the water industry, such as monitoring and reducing excessive pipe pressure, reducing pumping costs, preventing sewer overflows, identifying infiltration of the system . I wrote up a good case study earlier on what South East Water in Victoria is doing and this this explores some of these areas in more detail.

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7034977

LOL!! I have reposted this on the LinkedIn discussion group.

Next Tuesday 17 April, Umesh Bhutoria from EnergyTech Ventures will be delivering a webinar titled The Data Indigestion Crisis: New approaches to Energy Analytics. The successful startup from India is in the process of establishing its business in Australia, participating in a bootcamp program being run by Energy Australia. He company has developed an Insights as a Service business around energy analytics. I had coffee with Umesh to go over what he will present and was interested to find he is primarily targeting brownfield installations. When I questioned this strategy, he pointed out that the vast majority of installed systems managing energy consumption are largely underutilized, operating as alarm systems rather than being used to optimise energy efficiency. Umesh pointed to a number of issues such as the difficulty of having multiple data sources and a skill gap in knowing what to do with the data even if they had it. The main problem he says, is that companies often don't know what the actually want from their systems. He related one case where he won a contract over a large multi-national vendor because he told the client he didn't want their business if they couldn't see the difference in his approach. This encouraged the client to go back and work out their real needs. In this webinar, Umesh will begin with an introduction to Energy Analytics, outline the different approaches and then look at a case study of of one of the worlds largest Terry Towel manufacturing sites.