Infrastructure company Arqiva has helped launch a Sigfox-enabled smart neighbourhood in Scotland, allowing a social housing provider to track maintenance needs and energy usage remotely.
Around 300 IoT devices have been set up in homes owned by social housing provider River Clyde Home, which will use the sensors to track the reliability and safety of infrastructure including lifts and windows.
Other conditions, such as temperature, humidity, noise, movement, wind speed, heat and power, will also be tracked by the sensors.
As well as Sigfox’s LPWAN technology, which has been provided by Arqiva, the network in Broomhill, near Greenock, will also use devices built by IoT provider Webthings and a business intelligence system from technology platform and services provider Flexeye.
The companies behind the IoT network said the business intelligence system was notable because it uses the interoperable Hypercat standard, which is able to track different data from a range of IoT sensors. Flexeye is a partner in the Hypercat consortium.
Justin Anderson, Exec Chair, Flexeye, and a founder of Hypercat, said: “Smart technologies can make a big difference to the quality and cost of services in the social housing sector. Flexeye will play an essential role by turning sensor data into insight, action and opportunities for RCH to improve services for tenants. Our technology platform combined with Hypercat-enabled data, means that this initial demonstrator can be scaled to support other social landlords that in total have millions of properties nationwide.”
Sean Weir, Director Smart and M2M at Arqiva, added: “Social housing is one of many sectors that has the potential to be radically transformed by the IoT. Until now the cost of implementing IoT technologies has proved a big obstacle in realising these possibilities. With low cost, low power networks such as SIGFOX helping companies like Webthings bring effective IoT solutions to market affordably, this is all set to change.”