The impact of Covid-19 on the Internet of Things Part 2

IoT Analytics has seen two extreme reactions of different companies during the current crisis. One firm that was interviewed laid off their entire digital team as one of the first cost-cutting measures.
Another company cut costs elsewhere and ensured their digital initiatives would continue uninterrupted.COVID-19 may prove to be a decisive event that further widens the digital divide between those who cut digital initiatives and those that prioritize them.
Those that were just sailing along with some digital initiatives but didn’t take it too seriously, now fall behind, while others pull ahead and may find new digital business models that put them in a leading position in their industries for years to come.

What side of the divide are you aiming for?

May 4, 2020

IoT Smart Building buzz Smart City buzz

The impact of Covid-19 on the Internet of Things

How does Covid-19 impact the Internet of Things, its technology, and its applications specifically? We talked to various IoT decision-makers to understand..

Sensative quick summary: even more focus on remote control, automation, digital twins, and smart city & buildings. Less interest in consumer IoT devices and DIY.

April 17, 2020

IoT Smart Building buzz Smart City buzz

IoT Managed Services Mature, Despite Measured Enterprise Adoption

Managed service providers see emerging technology as a significant source of business opportunity over the next couple of years. More than 50% of respondents to a recent CompTIA survey already offer IoT managed services today, according to the survey.

Sensative thoughts: IoT is difficult and requires it’s competent and qualified staff. The obvious alternative is already picking up speed: Managed IoT Services.

At Sensative we already have contracts that are taking things even one step further, a new business that we call Sensing-as-a-Service. The customer just wants to have the data and doesn’t care about the tech at all. We provide everything and charge based on the data we generate and manage for them, not based on the products we install. Maybe, this will be the new normal in a few years?

April 3, 2020

Smart City buzz

Cities go digital to survive the new normal

During a recent webinar, leaders highlighted how online municipal services and platforms will be key amid the spread of COVID-19, particularly to eliminate the “barriers of communication” with residents.

Sensative take: A connected city is easier to manage remotely but digitalization should also be driven for everyday services, especially as residents are urged to self-isolate and many government employees working remotely.

March 23, 2020

Smart City buzz

Data Governance And Smart Cities Are Helping Improve Quality Of Life In Japan

As more and more municipalities in Japan and overseas turn to smart city solutions to address social issues, the volume of data being generated by cameras and other kinds of sensors is seeing explosive growth.

Sensative take: An interesting Fiware use case, the open-source framework and standard for Smart Cities, that our Yggio is based on. The case shows the versatility of the platform where surveillance cameras are used as a safety tool for the citizens.

March 23, 2020

IoT Smart City buzz Yggio

Data utvecklar Öresundskraft

För att erbjuda relevanta tjänster hanterar Öresundskraft stora mängder av både strukturerad och ostrukturerad data. Just nu utvecklar energibolaget tillsammans med Microsoft en plattform för all hantering och arbetar utifrån begreppet data som infrastruktur.

Sensatives kommentar: En spännande evolution pågår inom vår kund Öresundskraft. Ett moderniseringsarbete där man blir mer och mer data-drivna. Vår partner Atea och Öresundskraft jobbar tillsammans för att utveckla verksamheten och ta fram en helt ny och framtidssäker IT arkitektur. Till detta levererar Sensative Yggio som IoT-integrationslösning vilket passar väl in i den nya arkitekturen.

March 18, 2020

Smart City buzz

Citizens willing to share data for better services, report suggests

84 per cent said they are open to sharing their personally identifiable information and 41 per cent would be comfortable with it being shared between government agencies in exchange for more personalised customer service.

Sensative view:

This is good news for Smart Cities. As long as data is treated in accordance with privacy laws, like GDPR in the EU, the cities and citizens will make Smart Cities happen.

February 26, 2020

IoT Smart Building buzz Smart City buzz

Why The IoT Will Save Our Natural Resources

The transition to intelligent information systems will be crucial as global environmental challenges accelerate. Deploying IoT solutions with LoRa-based sensors, together with edge network analytics, makes it possible to install intelligent sensor systems without requiring labor-intensive sensor battery replacements.
In general, deploying an IoT solution is usually complex. Currently, there are limited end-to-end solutions that are available as “out-of-the-box” solutions. Systems integrators are the proper companies to turn to for providing such end-to-end solutions and making sure the relevant back-end IT systems are integrated such that existing processes will benefit from the new IoT data captured from sensors.

Sensative take:

LoRaWAN is an extremely important IoT technology and it grows rapidly. But it will never be the only transport technology for data from “things” to services. There are all the G’s (2-3-4-5G), close-range IoT like Bluetooth, WiFi, Z-Wave, ZigBee. There are mesh technologies. And there are LoRa competitors like Sigfox and NB-IoT.

No one technology will replace the others, all available technologies will have their optimal use cases. The important thing is the data they generate and transport, that the data can be integrated into useful services, that can optimize and change the way we use resources.

That is why our Yggio IoT integration platform is so important.

February 24, 2020

Smart City buzz

Delivering on the Promise of Smart Cities: From Vision to Outcomes

The ultimate proof of the value of smart city initiatives is the delivery of better outcomes in priority areas such as public safety, transportation, health, social equity, and environmental quality. A new white paper, The Evolution of Smart Cities: Delivering on the Promise, from Navigant Research, a Guidehouse company, looks at the evolution of smart cities as the focus shifts to demonstrating tangible results for all communities. Commissioned by Verizon, the white paper examines the challenges cities face as they evolve their smart city programs and highlights cities that are addressing those issues successfully. It also provides guidance for cities looking to accelerate the adoption of smart city solutions.

Sensative take:

As smart cities move away from pilots and early vertical solutions, they focus more on core city challenges and operational needs. This requires new platforms for data sharing between solutions, technologies, and departments, to open data and resources for reuse and new data-driven services. The type of platform that we call Yggio.

February 19, 2020

IoT Security Smart City buzz Yggio

OSCORE for end-to-end IoT security in resource-constrained devices

The new lightweight security protocol to secure CoAP messages could well become an industry standard. We implemented it in a smart city project.

New security technologies tested in a Smart City project, where, among others, U-blox and Sensative co-operates. In this blog post U-blox describes the OSCORE protocol in more detail.

In the system drawing below, there is a cloud service mentioned. That is where the U-blox part of the system connects to our platform Yggio, providing full end-to-end encryption from device to cloud service.

February 6, 2020

Smart City buzz Yggio

The 5 Layers of the Smart City

Today many cities find themselves unable to truly harness the potential of the smart city technologies available. In order to maintain the orientation and focus on a practical way to make cities smarter it can help to focus on five distinct layers of the smart city that need to be understood and managed.

Sensative take:

Cities often start with a vertical use case, for instance, building systems for smart lighting. This could be considered “easier” since it is controlled by one internal department and you could let one supplier deliver all HW and SW for an immediate effect. However, this is not necessarily the best approach to build a foundation for a Smart City. It just solves one of the thousands of imaginable use cases in a city.

The city should start with a Smart Architecture like the one discussed in this article. Then it becomes much clearer what requirements to put on the different suppliers. This architecture must be open, based on standards, and horizontal to cover all use cases, departments, suppliers, and technologies. This enables data sharing between use cases and departments and opens up for the reusing of taken investments in many new use cases.

When selecting the IoT platform that perfectly fits in this architecture it is not that easy. How to select a platform that doesn’t lock you in? Where you retain complete control over all data, where you easily can add new technologies, new data-flows, new vendors, mix cloud providers, and add new internal or 3rd party services that are cross-organizational. Where you also can integrate your city with your neighbors to share services, data, and cost.

It is based upon these requirements we’ve developed the Yggio IoT integration platform.

February 5, 2020

IoT Smart Building buzz Smart City buzz

Microsoft Wants Azure Platform to Become “the” IoT Cloud

…there is an obvious need for one company to step up and become the unified infrastructure on which built world IoT can connect and integrate. Microsoft thinks they can be that company…

Sensative’s view:

Is this really what the world and the society want? Having all your data managed and controlled by a monopoly company? What will that mean for competition, innovation, cost, and security? Microsoft is an American company under US jurisdiction and bound by the Cloud Act.

This is very much the same problem as the Google Sidewalk Labs project in Toronto. The citizens of Toronto are not to keen on letting Google own their IoT data too.

The way forward is Open Source and open standards, not a monopoly. That is why FIWARE is so essential.