The development of wirelessly connected devices, also known as the Internet of Things (IoT), just got a shot in the arm today.
From connected devices to Smart Cities
At the IoT World conference, held this week in Silicon Valley, wireless network operator Sigfox unveiled its Sens’It Discovery solution which combines a sensor-packed device (thermometer, hygrometer, light meter, accelerometer, magnetometer and a reed switch), the sensit.io application (for Web browsers and mobile) to remotely control the device, and 1 year of network connectivity to Sigfox's IoT Cloud.
"With Sens'it, our goal is to demystify IoT and accelerate its adoption by showing how easy anyone, from consumers to developers, can connect anything to the Internet," says Cédric Giorgi, the director of experience design at Sigfox. "Just attach the device to your door, a bicycle or anything really, and you will start receiving feeds of real-time data coming from the device, via the Sigfox Cloud, on your phone, through email, SMS or push notifications. It's that easy."
Priced at around $75, Sens'it also comes with a software development kit (SDK) for developers to start building a wide range of IoT applications from home appliances, vending machines, smart metering, asset tracking, supply chain management, logistics and even waste management.
Atherton Research Viewpoint
Today, large IoT applications are mostly deployed over 2 competitive low-power, wide-area (LPWA) IoT network: The one built by Sigfox and its telecom operators partners, and the other, LoraWAN, pushed by chip supplier Semtech through the LoRa Alliance.
Sigfox devices have better power efficiency (longer battery life) and resistance to jamming and interferences. And unlike Semtech, which is the only one making the radio for LoRa, Sigfox offers its technology license-free, making their money on network services and not on the device itself.
But the most important difference is on the end-to-end service.
The SigFox network covers 45 countries, which means that a Sigfox device will work seamlessly anywhere wherever it operates in the world.
On the other hand, with LoRa, there's a wireless operator partner for each country and customers need to make sure that there are roaming agreements in place if they want their device to work globally.
