The Project
In 2020, a PoC project was launched in the Region of Jönköping, Sweden, by the region’s thirteen municipalities and other municipal organizations, supported by the Swedish Energy Agency and Vinnova (Swedish governmental R&D agency). Apart from municipal actors, the project also involves real estate companies, communication providers, and more, totaling about 100 participants. The project will run until 2022 and aims to open up the use of IoT technology in the region by making it accessible to a host of municipal and private regional actors to trial the technology and learn in a user-friendly and straightforward manner.
Participants will explore new applications and use cases during the project, and the involved parties will share experiences, possible gains, and identified financial benefits. Further, the project wants to lay a foundation of expertise for structuring long-term IoT operations in the region and aid in creating a base for the digitization of cities and society as a whole.
Below you find a summary of the case. Click here to skip it and go directly to the video.
The Platform
During the procurement of an IoT platform to lay the foundation for the whole project, the Region of Jönköping put out an invitation to a tender. The county received seven offers, and Sensative won the tender together with Combitech (independent technical consulting company and Sensative partner). The region based their requirements on material from the IoT Sweden working group “Standards and IoT Platforms.” A substantial part of why Sensative won is the Yggio platform’s open horizontal design. Lahrin explains that in the city of Jönköping alone, there are about 4-600 different active systems that need to communicate, and this is before counting any deployed sensors and IoT systems, so it is necessary to acquire a platform with a competent integration layer.
Use Cases
After winning the tender, Sensative and Combitech suggested use cases suitable for initial pilot projects for the new technology. As a result, the Region of Jönköping bought three initial applications, with different sensor types for each application, which the region employed in four of its cities. Included in the package were consulting services covering the whole project length. Sensative and Combitech selected the specific initial use cases to briefly introduce the Yggio platform and let the municipalities quickly acquire data that could show all involved parties clear results and data to build upon.
Monitoring of water temperature
In conjunction with weather data, water temperature data from local lakes are collected in Yggio and shared with citizens on municipal websites.
Tracking lifebuoys
Sensors monitor lifebuoys and detect when a specific buoy leaves its resting place. During such an event, Yggio sends out alarms to the concerned parties. In reverse, Yggio will also notify when a buoy is returned to its resting position.
Positioning of defibrillators
Defibrillators placed around buildings is monitored in Yggio, and alarms will be sent out to relevant parties when the device is activated. This setup can help emergency staff quickly reach a person who has just suffered a heart attack.
After launching the initial applications, the region has extended the project use cases and applications within the categories Senior Care, Outdoor Living and Health, and Smart City.
Senior Care
- Open/close detection on elements such as doors, refrigerators, and windows.
- On/off detection for appliances like coffee makers, stoves, ovens, TVs, and radios.
- Motion detection can be connected to smart lights for night guidance and more through predefined scenarios.
- Fall detection where specific vibrations activate alarms.
Outdoor living and health
- Monitoring weather parameters such as rainfall, wind strength, and air pressure.
- Monitoring of hiking or exercising trails detailing the frequency of use.
- Monitoring of outdoor gym components detailing the frequency of use.
- Monitoring level of wood supply by public picnic area fireplaces.
Smart City
- Monitoring of parking spaces, workplaces, schools, museums, and more, detailing the frequency of use.
- Monitoring of trash bin fill levels.
- Smart lighting and HVAC (heating and ventilation) in public facilities are activated based on the number of people present and other factors.
Benefits of project use cases
This wide range of applications offers a host of gains for the municipality actors, saving on time, resources, and other efforts, while increasing attractiveness, security, and more in the region.
The applications offer improved quality of life for the caretakers in senior care while saving on resources needed elsewhere. As a positive perk that follows, the municipalities will also receive valuable data on IoT’s benefits in smart homes, which can aid in the optimization of operations and inspire new use cases.
In the region’s outdoor cases, the applications increase attractiveness in outdoor tourism, allow resource savings on manual work and enable the region to understand better citizens’ usage of recreational areas, which also lays a valuable foundation for further developments of these.
Lastly, the smart city applications offer improved communication and cooperation between the municipality and private businesses, laying an essential foundation for streamlining processes and enhancing digitization activities.
Lahrin points out that although the project is in its early stages, 50 people already have a login to Yggio and are actively experimenting with the platform by setting up scenarios and visualizing data.
Working with Sensative and Combitech
Lahrin expresses a high level of satisfaction with both companies. He highlights having received fast and solid guidance on various issues during the process and has had the region’s needs fully understood and met. The region is particularly satisfied with Sensative’s experts always being available for support. The introductory lessons are said to have been valuable and easy to understand. The suggested initial applications proved to be as beneficial as suggested, and the region considers these to have been a great starting point in their operations.
In the coming time, Lahrin expresses the region’s wishes to further develop the cooperation with Sensative by:
- Developing more profitable business cases
- Gaining more knowledge on the technology and its applications
- Aiding in making Yggio even more user-friendly
- Developing more integrations between Yggio and other systems
- Creating cost distribution models for municipalities and stakeholders
- Assisting in the development of standardizations on a national and international level
Cooperation
Lahrin and his colleagues see a great value in cooperating over both city limits and between municipal and private sectors when developing the smart region. The perks include better pricing on product investments, streamlined operations, faster and more robust growth by shared experiences, and increased regional and national attractiveness.
The following steps in the project involve developing more use cases, creating a foundation of data for scaling, launching a project website to showcase developments, and visualizing the collected data for stakeholders and other parties through software such as Power BI, Grafana, and GIS software.
Lahrin highlights the region’s wish to cooperate with more actors and encourages these to contact him at torbjorn.lahrin@soprasteria.com or +46702082085.
To learn more about the Region of Jönköping, visit their website @ rjl.se
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