IoT Starts in the Field

Yesterday I was out at a client site digging a 3-foot hole through what seemed like a never ending layer of clay. Luckily it was a great day to be outside, so I didn’t mind (too much), and it gave me plenty of time to think.

Obviously, I was thinking about IoT and how far our journey has come over these last few years. I see a lot of good advice from IoT pundits, but nothing beats actually being in the field doing the hard work of getting real data. Whether it’s digging a hole for a 32-inch soil sensor, installing a Class 1 level sensor in an oil tank, or having your fingers go numb installing NIST calibrated temperature sensors inside a freezer; this is where the hard lessons are learned. 

Next comes connectivity. The easy part right? In our case yesterday, that involved getting a clear signal about a half mile away to a lorawan gateway that was sitting inside of a metal shed. Surprisingly we got pretty good signal strength, so we were able to verify the data on the back-end and close everything up.  

But what if it hadn't worked. Customers don’t really understand the limitations of RSSI or SNR. They just want it to work.  There are plenty of tools in our belt to make it work in different situations. We could use an outside mount, or route the antenna to the roof of the building or a tower. But with each step, comes additional cost in parts and labor and challenges that the customer doesn’t always expect.

Our end goal is to make IoT easy and useful. To allow a customer to design, install and test a sensor kit without the need for a consultant. So far we have been pretty successful with many clients doing their own install in farms, resturants, even manufacturing. But it's not always seamless, and usually not the customers primary focus. The only way to get to the point where you can streamline the process and avoid as many problems as possible, i.e., get to scale is out in the field working the issues.  

And of course, celebrating the wins when a solution goes in relatively easy.