THE INGENU BLOG

December 20, 2016

Less But Better

Blossom and Boom

Since the blossoming of the renaissance and the boom of the industrial revolution all the way up to the information age, technology has simplified and enriched the lives of people around the world. Technology is one of those things that takes a lot of work up front to get right but saves countless hours of work and toil moving forward.  It is the investment we make to improve our lives in the physical world. Water sanitation plants, pipes and pumps bring clean water to homes. Automobiles and airplanes reduced travel from months to hours. Technology has truly removed barriers and allowed us to spend our times on other more meaningful things.

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December 14, 2016

3 benefits a smart city can gain from smart infrastructure

ReadWrite – December 14, 2016 – The Internet of Things is sweeping across the globe at breakneck speeds, and before we know it, our entire lives will be facilitated by connected technology.

We’re already seeing the IoT make an incredible impact on how the industrial world operates, and we’re seeing it seep into household goods to bring convenience and efficiency to consumers’ lives.  Read more >>

December 14, 2016

U.S. Sugar and AgriSource Data Leverage Ingenu’s Machine Network to Deliver Innovative Smart Agriculture Solution

RPMA-Enabled Application Drives Significant Efficiencies for the Country’s Largest Sugarcane Producer

SAN DIEGO – December 14, 2016 – Ingenu Inc.™, the company that delivers purpose-built IoT connectivity, today announced its RPMA® (Random Phase Multiple Access) technology will enable a water optimization application provided by AgriSource Data, an agriculture data application company. The smart agriculture solution will monitor moisture levels of sugarcane crops managed by U.S. Sugar in Clewiston, Florida and will utilize Ingenu’s Machine Network™ which recently expanded coverage across the majority of the state.

AgriSource Data will integrate Ingenu’s RPMA into its Intelliroot™ smart moisture system to optimize agricultural water usage and enhance crop yields. The company will also analyze the data collected to provide real-time intelligence to farmers on soil moisture, nutrient and erosion levels. AgriSource Data will initially deploy its solution in Florida and plans to expand to other locations as the Machine Network is built out around the globe.

“Ingenu’s RPMA is ideally suited for the specific needs of the agriculture market,” said Ben Worley, chief executive officer, AgriSource Data. “With long-range capabilities and reliable coverage, we believe it will provide our customers with a powerful tool to enhance crop production and streamline farm operations.”

U.S. Sugar is a farming company that grows sugarcane, citrus and sweet corn, and is the largest producer of sugarcane in the United States. The company utilizes wireless technology to enhance harvesting operations, railroad transportation and mill operations, and will deploy the Intelliroot solution to provide data and analysis of the soil conditions of its sugarcane crops.

“U.S. Sugar operates the largest, contiguous, privately owned Wi-Fi network in the country to monitor crop operations, said Scott Berden, precison ag manager, U.S. Sugar. “However, a crop such as sugarcane can be difficult to serve because of its density. We found that the RPMA network provided extremely reliable coverage, and we believe if it can transmit through a sugarcane field, it can probably get through anything!”

With the expansion of the Florida Machine Network, the cities of Orlando, Miami and Fort Lauderdale will join previously launched markets, that include Tampa Bay and Jacksonville, to provide Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity to the majority of the state’s population. Serving the fourth largest economy in the United States, the Florida Machine Network will cover more than 7,000 square miles of area to serve IoT applications including smart agriculture, logistics, mining, transportation, elderly monitoring, smart cities, among others.

The nationwide Machine Network build-out is now underway across the United States, and is targeted to serve over 100 major metropolitan areas by the end of 2017. The Machine Network currently provides more than 100,000 square miles of wireless coverage for a host of IoT applications. For specific information on the Florida Machine Network, visit http://staging.ingenu.com/technology/machine-network/cities. For a video featuring the RPMA coverage at U.S. Sugar, visit https://vimeo.com/195333287.

 

About Ingenu Inc.

Ingenu™ is building the Machine Network™, the world’s largest IoT network dedicated to LPWA (low-power, wide-area) connectivity for machines. Operating on universal spectrum, the company’s RPMA® technology is a proven standard for connecting Internet of Things (IoT) devices around the world, with 38 private networks deployed. The Machine Network will have further reach, global range and longer lasting battery life than any existing network. Ingenu is led by a highly experienced team, including veterans from Verizon, T-Mobile, and Qualcomm. Information about Ingenu can be found at staging.ingenu.com, or follow us on Twitter @ingenunetworks.

December 12, 2016

The Good, The Bad and the IoT

I live in San Diego County, and while getting my news fix this morning, I heard two reports which were pertinent to the IoT (Internet of Things) industry in which I work. The first story noted that the City of San Diego was awarded a gold medal by the Climate Action Campaign for its municipal sustainability and clean energy initiatives. And, just a few moments later, there was a story siting an audit which had been done on the city’s streetlight repairs, noting that the process was “broken” and that some lights were not repaired for months, posing safety, energy and liability issues for the city.

It was interesting to learn that while a city such as San Diego can have razor-like focus on one IoT initiative, it can also fall extremely short with another. This is not unique to “America’s Finest City”, in fact, it is quite common with municipalities. Many city services operate in silos without interaction between departments. This is a waste of resources, technology, and most importantly, money.

However, the IoT aims to alleviate these issues by providing a single platform on which applications and city services can operate. A network designed for machine-centric connectivity can serve disparate devices and be managed under one municipal roof. To use the example of San Diego, one network could initially provide connectivity for the city’s sustainability applications such as air quality monitoring, fleet management, parking, grid and water. Later, the street lighting could be IoT-enabled and then added onto the same network.

In order to accommodate these varied applications, the network would need to be widely available, have reliable municipal coverage and be able to add devices without capacity limitations. Ingenu’s RPMA (Random Phase Multiple Access) is just such a network. The field-proven network is being rolled out across the U.S. and the rest of the globe at a rapid pace.

Ingenu’s RPMA is ideally suited for Smart City connectivity because:

  • The Machine Network™ is publicly available for a host of IoT applications and is managed by Ingenu, so the city can focus on providing services, not deploying and managing a network infrastructure.
  • RPMA has the best coverage of all LPWA (low-power, wide-area) solutions, so it can connect devices through a city’s varied topology
  • The network is extremely scalable and can add capacity as needed, so IoT applications from an array of departments can operate together seamlessly.

A smart city is only as smart as its network strategy; Ingenu strives to make it simply genius.

December 12, 2016

IoT Won’t Be Cash Crop for Carriers

The CEO of Northstream, Bengt Nordstrom, in a recent article in European Communications, had some pretty eye-opening things to say. In talking about the role of the IoT for  mobile carriers and operators he said,

“Some of the larger operators that entered this market some years ago, and are really betting on it, might have chance of getting three to five percent of their revenues from the IoT.”

However, Nordstrom then explained that most operators the IoT would only contribute about 1 percent of their total revenues. Nordstrom continues,Read More

December 8, 2016

Bang For Your Buck Prototypes

While LPWAN (Low-Power, Wide-Area Network) companies are busy establishing their networks, a developer’s innovative new prototype can steal the IoT limelight.  My name is Clemente, Intern at Ingenu and Electrical Engineering Student at the University of San Diego.   I am currently building prototypes with the RPMA® (Random Phase Multiple Access) Dev-Kit for demonstrations at upcoming Ingenu hackathons.  This post will share my process of transforming a trip to the hardware store and the RPMA Dev-Kit into a proof-of-concept prototype.   Before getting into my prototyping process, I want to refer you to my colleague’s article about how simple it is to get started with the RPMA Dev-Kit.

Max Gibbons’ blog series “An Idiots Guide to RPMA Development” demonstrated how just about anyone can take the RPMA Dev-Kit and make an IoT proof-of-concept prototype.  In summary, Max used a humidity & temperature sensor connected to an Arduino that forwarded its readings to the RPMA module.  I encourage everyone to check out Max’s series first and see that the RPMA Dev-Kit is as simple as working with a command line interface.   His article did a great job demonstrating RPMA in action; however, the RPMA Dev-Kit acted only as a communication module in his example.  The light I will cast on the RPMA Dev-Kit is its ability to act as a standalone development board.  Furthermore, I implore you to read the material in the RPMA Dev-Kit Starter Pack and find out all the built-in functionality it has.   For my example prototype, I will use one of the most simple and useful features built into the Dev-Kit called “rising or falling edge detected alarms”.

The edge detection feature on the RPMA Dev-Kit, a working home fire alarm, and some simple electronics were all the materials I needed to build an RPMA fire alarm.  In an effort to keep things simple, I started my project by making a few good design decisions.  I asked myself, what signal am I going to use from the fire alarm to alert the Dev-Kit?  Does that signal need modification to work with the Dev-Kit? Lastly, how will I connect and configure my board to a fire alarm?  For the first question, I decided to use the fire alarm’s reliable speaker output signal.   To get access to the fire alarm’s signal for analysis, I removed the fire alarm’s cover and spliced some wires to the speaker output.  Using an oscilloscope showed me, as seen in Figure 1, that the fire alarm speaker outputs a square wave, with a peak-to-peak voltage of about twenty volts.  This voltage is too much for a development board to handle, which answered my second question.  To reduce the signal’s positive voltage to 3.3 volts and eliminate any negative voltage, I used the circuit shown in Figure 2.  This circuit, using Schottky diodes, removed almost all of my negative voltage and clipped my positive voltage to the board’s voltage of 3.3V.   Now that my signal was safe to work with, I had to configure the RPMA Dev-Kit and connect everything together.

As seen in part two of “An Idiots Guide to RPMA Development,” you can configure the RPMA Dev-Kit from the command line running Python with no real coding required.  For my fire alarm application, I configured my board working off the premade configuration file “field_cfg_intrusion_nc.txt” included in the RPMA Dev-Kit Starter Pack.  My Dev-Kit’s configuration was as follows:

  • Set APP_INTF1 as input (DIG_INPUT)
  • Enabled OTA Reporting (OTA Data Reporting = ON)
  • Disabled read & poll mapping (I’m only interested when the alarm sounds)
  • Enabled edge interrupts (INT_ON)
  • Enabled rising edge detection (ALARM TYPE = ALARM_HIGH)
  • Every other Dev-Kit configuration port and features were disabled.

In relation to the entire development process, configuring my RPMA Dev-Kit was by far the easiest part.  For the last step, I just had to connect everything together.  Using a prototyping breadboard with some jumper wires, I connected the 3.3 volts, ground, and GPIO from the RPMA Dev-Kit to the voltage protection circuit in Figure 2.   The final assembled proof-of-concept prototype can be seen in Figure 3.

In a single afternoon, with about twenty-five dollars, I was able to take an off-the-shelf fire alarm to create an LPWAN fire alarm using Ingenu’s RPMA Dev-Kit.  The time I saved, during my prototype’s hardware development, then went towards my application’s software development.  Using the “Rest2Console” Python script, included in the RPMA Dev-Kit Starter Pack, I was able to create additional Python programs that polled Ingenu’s IntellectTM platform to send alert text messages to whoever might be using my RPMA fire alarm.  This project’s rapid time to completion was possible due to the ease of use, simplicity, and independence that the RPMA Dev-Kit offers.  Access the Machine Network™ and develop your next great IoT product in this window of opportunity by requesting your own personal RPMA Dev-Kit here today.

Figure 1: Simulated Speaker Output in Blue, Modified Speaker Output in Green

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 2: Protection Circuit with Vout Connecting to RPMA Dev-Kit 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 3: Completed Proof-of-Concept RPMA Prototype (White = Signal, Red = 3.3 Volts, Black = Ground)

December 7, 2016

Why Modern Cities Should Consider Smart Lighting

ICMA – December 7, 2016 – In an age of smartphones, ubiquitous configuration, and eco-consciousness, traditional city lighting shines like a beacon from the 19th century, begging for an update.

Across all realms of modern life, “always on” has been replaced by “just in time,” and this techno-cultural change is just one reason cities should begin embracing a simpler, less wasteful, and more elegant option: smart lights. Read more >>

December 6, 2016

Ingenu, PTC and Libelium to Simulate Environmental Monitoring Solution at Smart Cities Summit in Boston

RPMA-enabled IoT solution to provide air quality monitoring, serving municipal customers

SMART CITIES SUMMIT, Boston – December 6, 2016 – Ingenu Inc.™, the company that delivers purpose-built IoT connectivity, today announced it will be demonstrating the capabilities of an environmental monitoring solution, integrating its RPMA® (Random Phase Multiple Access) network technology with the Libelium Plug&Sense! Air Quality monitoring device and PTC’s ThingWorx® IoT platform. The solution will be demonstrated in the Ingenu booth during the Smart Cities Summit event, taking place December 6-7, 2016 at the Courtyard Boston Downtown, in Boston, Mass.

The demonstration will simulate an environmental monitoring solution measuring the air quality index (AQI) of Boston as an example. The RPMA-enabled Libelium Plug&Sense! device will collect information on levels of carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and ozone and will provide evaluation and assessment of AQI and preventive alerts and insightful actions based on the data collected. In turn, the ThingWorx platform will provide automated predictive modeling and will deliver prescriptive and simulative intelligence to bring environmental data to end-users.

“As levels of air pollution continue to increase across the globe, environmental monitoring is of utmost concern to municipalities and a major facet of their smart city initiatives,” said Joshua Builta, vice president of product management at Ingenu. “Governmental regulations are also driving adoption of environmental monitoring solutions for cities, so implementation of this type of solution is top-of-mind with city managers and city CIOs.”

In a recent report by Transparency Market Research, the global market for air quality monitoring equipment stood at $4.2 billion in 2015, and is predicted to reach nearly $9 billion by 2024.

Ingenu is currently building out its nationwide Machine Network across the United States, and is targeted to serve over 100 major metropolitan areas by the end of 2017. The Machine Network provides more than 100,000 square miles of wireless coverage for a host of IoT applications, and is ideal for smart city applications such as environmental monitoring.

 

About RPMA

Utilizing globally available spectrum, Ingenu’s RPMA® (Random Phase Multiple Access) technology is purpose-built for M2M/IoT connectivity, offering unparalleled range, coverage and capacity with extremely low power requirements and longer-lasting battery life. It uniquely enables devices to connect more efficiently and cost-effectively in both the uplink and downlink. Requiring fewer towers to provide coverage to large areas (1:10 to 1:30 radio towers needed for RPMA vs. cellular), RPMA is rapidly becoming a global standard for IoT communication. For more information on RPMA technology, visit  staging.ingenu.com/technology/rpma/

About Ingenu Inc.

Ingenu™ is building the first wireless Machine Network™, the world’s largest IoT network dedicated to LPWA (low-power, wide-area) connectivity for machines only. Operating on universal spectrum, the company’s RPMA® technology is a proven standard for connecting Internet of Things (IoT) and machine-to-machine (M2M) devices around the world, with 38 private networks deployed over seven years. The Machine Network will have further reach, global range and longer lasting battery life than any existing network. It is also future-proof: enabling technology solution providers to maximize their product’s efficiency and longevity, with unparalleled control and visibility. Ingenu is led by a highly experienced team and backed by one of the strongest boards in the industry, including veterans from Verizon and Qualcomm. Information about Ingenu can be found at staging.ingenu.com, or follow us on Twitter @ingenunetworks.

December 5, 2016

Everything You Need to Know About the Internet of Things

1ipopootvbmb_2zrlb6nqdwHacker Noon – December 5, 2016 – Yup, just like the title says, this post discusses what you should know about the IoT. We provide the must-know material for sussing through the details when developing an application or considering wireless technologies for connecting a device. That’s a high order, so we will update as new developments are made, we receive requests and feedback, and more is revealed about technologies. In short, this is a living source of IoT information. Read more>>

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