During Covid, the safe, on-time transport of vaccines became a high priority. An IoT industry grew up around tracking where a vaccine shipment was located and if sensors detected any change in temperature, humidity or light.
Today, various approaches to tracking vital goods have grown more sophisticated. Plenty of big companies sell the various sensors and cellular gateways that a customer might need. They include Johnson Controls, Verizon Connect, Zebra Technologies and more. Over At SmartSense by Digi, the company offers credit-card-sized sensors and a cellular gateway jammed on a board with processor and memory which is sealed in a rugged envelope that can be used in a freezer or a moving truck.
Instead of charging customers by the number of sensors or cellular gateways, the company relies on sensing-as-a-service billing concept designed to make it easier for clients. In a typical mobile tracking set-up, called Voyage, the annual fee could be based on a weekly service fee of $18, providing 3 meter accuracy via GPS. By contrast, a a single freezer in a store could incur a $10 -$18 monthly fee, depending on the number of sensors installed.
Inside the credit-card T1 unit are sensors for detecting light (for when someone opens the package), temperature and humidity and a gyroscope in case the delivery truck hits something. SmartSense today is providing rechargeable units, but in March is planning to market a disposable card. With that, the battery will last for thousands of transmissions.
“What we’ve done for the market is make tracking simple for purchase,” said SmartSense President Guy Yehiav in an interview with Fierce. “We win business because of the easiness. We talk with the head of compliance or the nurse chief officer” and not necessarily the company’s CIO. “We’re selling a solution and not hardware or gateways.”
It seems to be working. SmartSense has seen above 20% annual growth now that Yehiav has been in charge for nearly four years. With about 220 professionals on staff and four offices in the US, SmartSense has about 4,000 customers under contract.
The credit-card-size device is made in a partnership with Nordic, although SmartSense provides labs and design itself. Recently, some of the work was done in Vietnam but now contract manufacturing is moving to the US. “Made in America is definitely a big movement,” Yehiav said.
The business is divided between food service and healthcare customers. One, EssilorLuxottica, has used the technology for loss prevention, knowing if a container of expensive sunglasses is headed in one direction, while the truck is headed the other way.
SmartSense has 12 years of data that helps inform its system, relying on machine learning. The system is smart enough to know if a walk-in freezer has been stocked even if the cooler door is closed, for example. The ML helps identify false positives through a connection to a data center.
In the future, Yehiav said engineers are exploring energy harvesting to power the devices, using light or radio waves. “We’re analyzing RF or light harvesting,” he said.