Anyone who spends time in cities won’t have missed the rise in popularity of micromobility (aka urban mobility). Small, lightweight vehicles such as e-scooters and e-bikes provide affordable, accessible, and eco-friendly transportation that is also cost-effective, and are seen as the answer to gridlocked cities and urban air pollution. Ernst & Young has called e-scooters the ‘fastest growing mode of transport ever documented’.  In fact, the micromobility market is expected to enjoy CAGR of 16 percent from $3 billion in 2019 to $12 billion by 2027. This growth is due to both changes in consumer sentiment, where micromobility solutions are increasingly seen as viable commuter options, and the industry itself willingly tackling some of its more pressing issues, such as parking. Micromobility is also getting a boost from city planners, who are prioritizing greater sustainability and efficiency and the reduction of car use within city boundaries.

IoT and digitalization continue to impact nearly every industry and retail is no different. While retailers have been working with RFID for quite a long time, new and improved IoT technologies are giving retailers the opportunity to improve operations and enhance customer experience, whether that’s in your brick-and-mortar operation or your e-commerce side of things. From reducing inventory error and optimizing supply chains to decreasing labor costs and reducing theft, IoT can benefit both customer and business owner in myriad ways. 

Here are seven ways IoT is enabling and enhancing retail:

In-store data collection

Smart sensors allow retailers to track foot traffic and shopping behavior, which offers a number of benefits. First, understanding traffic flows allows businesses to evolve store layouts and stock placement to data-driven merchandising, as well as pairing products and placing them where they can easily be found by the customer.  Brands also have the opportunity to identify traffic hotspots, allowing them to strategically place promotional material or advertising in spaces where shoppers frequent, creating more awareness with less effort.

Automated checkout

Let’s face it: no one likes to stand in long lines waiting to pay. Long lines not only lead to lost customers in the moment, they can also deter customers from returning to your store. That said, adding more staff to handle the problem isn’t always the optimal solution. While self-checkout has helped ease the problem to an extent, IoT-enabled checkout systems are the real game-changer. An automated checkout system reads tags on each item a customer has put in their basket as they leave the store. So, instead of checking out at the counter with an employee or going through a self-checkout line, the automated checkout system takes note of the items and deducts the cost from the customer’s mobile payment app. The result is quicker purchases, happier customers, and reduced costs for the retailer.

Smart shelves

Inventory management is a time-consuming task, but a vital one in order to make sure that items are not out of stock, misplaced, or stolen. Smart shelves help you track inventory and get an alert whenever stock levels are funning low or when an item is misplaced/placed on a shelf incorrectly. IoT sensors allow you to gather information and data on each product, which not only helps you monitor stock levels, but also detect in-store theft.

Personalized discounts

Loyalty programs and discounts are an ideal way to show appreciation for returning customers while also ensuring their loyalty. IoT sensors placed around a store can distribute loyal discounts to loyalty program members via their smartphones when they stand near discounted products. Additionally, IoT can track items that a customer has been looking at online, sending them a personalized discount when they visit the store. So, instead of offering general discounts on numerous random products, each discount can be tailored to individual customers, maximizing conversion rates.

Optimized store layout

Planning store layout can be tricky, but through the use of IoT data and analytics, a store’s layout can be optimized not just for the retailer, but for the customers too. This not only enhances customer experience, it also increases profitability. Deploying sensors across aisles can help retailers place products in relation to customer behavior, including placing the least in demand products front and center and the most popular ones further to the back. The data gathered also provides insights into customer behavior and shopping preferences.

Food safety monitoring

Food and beverage retailers know that efficient operations are crucial when it comes to offering their customers products that are fit for consumption. Establishing and maintaining an efficient operation, though, can be challenging and one impacted by any number of factors. Anything from an electrical outage to staff error can lead to stock contamination, spoilage, and loss – costing you money. IoT sensors can prevent loss and mitigate human error by monitoring perishable goods in real team. They can automatically log temperatures in prep areas, fridges, freezers, and other equipment, setting thresholds for each sensor and receiving an alert any time a threshold is breached. This helps protect inventory by ensuring food storage areas remain temperature compliant.

Supply chain optimization

Managing customer expectations is crucial in retail and IoT allows retailers to do this through up-to-date insights into inventory availability. Starting in the warehouse, IoT-enabled sensors on product shelves can monitor weight fluctuations that signal when products are running low. This ability to recognize the popularity of particular goods – such as the ones that are flying off the shelves – allows retailers to proactively restock in good time. This is increasingly important as more and more customers move to online shopping – physical inventory isn’t visible, so the ability to know when to restock before someone purchases an item that isn’t available lowers the risk of transactional error. Additionally, warehouses are big and finding a particular product can be like finding a needle in a haystack – deploying sensors in your warehouse leads to greater overall visibility and streamlined processes.

IoT is one of the driving technologies behind the smart city concept and is poised to be a key component in facilitating sustainable urban development. More than half of the world population lives in urban areas today and cities account for more than 70 percent of global carbon emissions and 60-80% of energy consumption. As urban populations have increased, services have overall deteriorated in terms of both quantity and quality, with rapid urbanization giving rise to increased challenges around things like traffic congestion, water contamination, and most importantly, social inequality.

Municipalities are leveraging IoT technology to connect devices, infrastructure, and people. It is being used to address challenges that range from waste management and water conservation to traffic, air pollution, and power grids. By leveraging IoT technologies, cities are able to successfully manage their growing populations by improving quality of life and the efficiency of urban operations and services, while also increasing competitiveness and addressing economic, social, environmental, and cultural needs.

Let’s take a closer look at a few areas where cities are leveraging IoT technology to address challenges, and how things could play out as solutions evolve:

Transportation & traffic

Among the key goals of any public transport system are greater efficiency and reliability – and smart technology is the key to enablement. There are a number of areas where IoT is particularly helpful:

• Toll & ticketing

More people in our cities means more vehicles on our roads – and an increase of vehicles means queues at toll booths. While automated tolls, using an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag, have already improved the flow of traffic, further improvements are possible through the use of IoT technology. Many of today’s vehicles come equipped with IoT connectivity, which allows a car or truck to be detected up to a kilometer away from a tolling station. What this means in practice is that the car or truck can be identified long before it approaches a toll booth – so when the vehicle finally gets there the barrier automatically raised for the vehicle to pass through. For older vehicles, a registered smart phone could serve the same purpose, taking automatic payment from the phone’s digital wallet.

• Connected vehicles

As mentioned, many vehicles today are already connected and are equipped with sensors and devices that monitor everything from brakes and the engine to tire pressure and exhaust. Going forward, connected vehicles will use in-vehicle networks, radar, and cameras to help detect and communicate with one another, prevent collisions, and promote smooth traffic flow. Vehicle tracking systems are already being used within the freight and rental segments, monitoring driver behavior and collecting data on things like idling time and fuel consumption.

• Public transport management

IoT technologies are already widely used in public transport, including for integrated ticketing and automated fare collection, passenger information, and display systems. IoT can also be used for real-time vehicle tracking, which allows public transport agencies to communicate better with customers about things like arrival and departure times. Datal analysis and real-time management allows transit agencies to monitor progress in real-time and make adjustments for unpredicted incidents, such as accidents, roadworks, station closures, etc.

Smart lighting

The majority of city dwellers spend more time indoors than outdoors, which can have a significant impact on energy consumption. The use of electricity for lighting can be significantly optimized with the use of intelligent systems. Natural light cycles can be mimicked by incorporating light and temperature sensors, while light sensor-based applications can be used to manage the orientation of solar panels for optimal usage of natural resources.

If we look at street lighting, the savings and benefits are clear:

• Dynamic dimming

Intelligent streetlights adjust light levels based on specific times and events. When paired with motion sensors, light levels can be further refined. Dynamic dimming based on time, event, or human presence can result in a more than 60% reduction in energy consumption, while the use of motion sensors means when no human presence is detected, streetlights illuminate at a low, predefined level, reducing energy usage, CO2 emissions, and light pollution.

• Maintenance optimization

Intelligent streetlights mean near real-time information on each light, allowing almost instant notification of faults or errors, which allows city managers to take informed actions, while at the same time reducing the need for manual checks. This can reduce maintenance costs significantly.

• Increased public safety

Smart motion sensors trigger streetlights only when humans are detected, for example when a pedestrian or cyclist passes by, encircling them in a ‘circle of light’.  This increases overall public safety, as statistically speaking criminals avoid committing crimes in well-lit areas.

Additionally, smart streetlights offer an ideal point from which a diverse range of smart city applications can be launched, collecting a wide array of data on everything from air quality to street security to traffic patterns. Streetlight poles have an uninterrupted power supply, making it easy to power IoT devices and sensors. They are also generally spread uniformly across cities and are consistent in height, making them idea for hosting all kinds of IoT sensors and systems, removing the need to set up ad hoc infrastructures.

Healthcare

Combine a global pandemic with ongoing populations growth, inefficient patient flow, swindling staff, and a host of other challenges in healthcare and it’s clear that healthcare can use all the help it can get. Through the use of IoT, authorities can collect data to gain valuable insights, which in turn can be used for better public healthcare planning.

For patients, devices such as smart insulin pens, connected inhalers, asthma monitors, blood pressure monitors, etc. allow them to better manage and address their own health needs, as well as provide more accurate data to their healthcare providers – and also quickly access help if there is trouble. Additionally, data collection allows observation and treatment to take place, something that was previously only possible in an institutional setting. Smart devices and other connected sensors can also help with early detection.

Here are several of the ways IoT can enable better healthcare:

• Remote monitoring

Customized software and devices gathers data from remote devices in real time, allowing for a better analysis of patient’s health – and thus improved outcomes.

• Enhanced supervision & reporting

Remote supervision through connected devices can collect essential health data and transfer it to a health professionals in real time, allowing a quick response to medical emergencies such as heart failure or asthma attacks.

• Reduced costs

Connected devices and other IoT devices such as tele care allow patients to connect with their health professionals from how, reducing the need for visits to the doctor’s office for tests and checkups.

• Medication Management

There are a number of IoT solutions already helping patients better track their medication schedule, including smart pill bottles and in-home medication dispensers that also alert both healthcare professionals and concerned friends and family if there is a problem.

• Data Analysis

Data-driven insights not only speed up the decision-making process of healthcare professionals, they also allow for better public health decisions overall, whether that is where to allocate money or where to build a new hospital.

Essentially, IoT can play a pivotal role in the future of healthcare, with many solutions already available today.  It is a vast area, though, so please download our IoT & Healthcare White Paper to learn more.

Retrofitting existing building stock

Every year, nearly 5 billion square meters of buildings are retrofitted. Retrofitting existing building stock is an effective approach when dealing with limited budgets, aging structures, and energy accountability, as it helps reduce energy costs, improves equipment performance, and extends the lifetime of the building.

If we look closer at energy, in the EU, buildings are responsible for 40% of total energy consumption and 36% of greenhouse gas emissions. Retrofitting ageing building stock presents a major opportunity to not just reduce carbon emissions, but to also reduce operating costs and provide more comfortable and healthier buildings for citizens. Retrofitting also has significant job generation potential.

Before IoT, tracking and collecting building performance data was a manual job – and it was tedious, inaccurate, and a slow process. Now, with IoT sensors and the data generated, it is possible to monitor and track a building’s performance in near real-time, giving crucial insights on the go, which leads to better outcomes.

When IoT sensors and smart technology are introduced into the picture, you can monitor and control the use and operation of building equipment, such as HVAC systems, lighting, and plug loads, you also get real-time data, all of which leads to detection and diagnoses of faulty equipment, energy efficiency, and even enhanced profitability.

These are just a few of the ways IoT is enabling smart, sustainable urban development. To learn more, download the Tele2 IoT Smart City White Paper, which covers this topic in depth. You are also welcome to contact us to learn more about how IoT can help your community address your challenges.

Logistics is complex and involves the coordination of multiple elements. Today, with increasing demand for online deliveries, shorter delivery cycles, growing competition, and shrinking margins enterprises are under more pressure than ever to ensure that their logistics management is streamlined and efficient. Digitalization and the introduction of IoT technologies has allowed the industry to experience a huge increase in efficiency: optimizing processes, staying competitive with market rivals, increasing quality of service, and keeping costs under control.

With IoT, businesses are able to integrate assets within the supply chain into a single system. Data collection and tracking capabilities are providing visibility across the entire value chain to enhance and improve everything from warehouse efficiency to fleet management.

So, why invest in an IoT logistics solution and why integrate connected technology into your operations. Here’s why:

Warehouse & storage

With IoT, you can be aware of every moving part in your warehouse. Connected sensors can keep tight control over your inventory by tracking and analyzing inventory positions and stock levels across your operation. Smart shelves provide inventory information, alerting you when stocks are low, products are displaced, temperatures are unsuitable, when there is theft, etc. Additionally, wearables allow you to track employee health, location, and performance, as well as report collisions and falls, improving safety across your operation. IoT sensors can also track operating conditions of machines and other equipment, allowing for maximum productivity, as well as predictive maintenance – which reduces costs of repairs and keeps downtime to a minimum.

End-to-end product tracking

Transparency is the name of the game when you integrate IoT-technology into logistics. An IoT tracking system allows logistics managers to track any product’s movement from the warehouse to your customer’s doorstep. This establishes transparency, reduces human error (and the resulting pressure on staff), and increases customer satisfaction. Real-time delivery tracking becomes seamless and reduces headaches for everyone because you will be able to tell any customer calling to find out where their delivery is exactly where it is and when it will arrive. This also saves on time for your customer service reps, who can easily pinpoint exactly where a delivery is.

Fleet management

An IoT-based vehicle tracking and management system allows you to easily monitor your fleet. IoT devices provide accurate data so you can save time and money, as well as reduce downtime – and in the end that means better, and more-data driven business decisions.

• Engine performance
• Fuel consumption
• Location-based information
• Driver behavior
• Predictive maintenance

Forecasting accuracy

With all that data being generated and analyzed, you will be able to get a very clear picture on everything from how much time it takes to sell a given amount of product and how to optimize deliveries of that product to which vendors have better track records and which distribution centers have higher conversion rates. The result? Much better accuracy when planning operations and predicting outcomes. By moving you to data-based decision making, human error is significantly reduced. And all that automatic data collection means you not only save on manhours that would previously been spent manually collecting data, you can also collect data that would have been difficult or impossible to collect without IoT.

If you would like to learn more about the benefits of IoT in your logistics operation, please get in touch..

Moving from products to services – servitization – is something we in the IoT world have been talking about for a long time. Now, with digitalization in manufacturing well underway, more and more companies are understanding the benefits of making this move. Of course, it’s no secret that the subscription economy has impacted how we consume everything from music and movies to cars and printers. The subscription business model/servitization moves away from one-time transactions and instead allows companies to build loyal, long-term relationships with customers, delivering customer-centric services while also creating predictability. According to the Subscription Economy Index, companies that moved towards a subscription-based business model grew six times faster than traditional businesses in 2020.

The benefits of servitization are myriad. The first and perhaps most important benefit is that it allows you to meet customer demands, which ultimately leads to greater customer retention, something we all need to focus on as customer requirements increase. Another benefit is that customers only pay for the value received from a supplier, while the manufacturer no longer has to focus solely on units sold, and instead builds a profitable business from regular streams of additional, incremental revenue. Additionally, useful insights into future R&D processes can be gained by analyzing the performance of a product and using this information for continuous improvement.

When it comes to manufacturing, the question is if this customer-driven model works for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), where customers can ‘rent’ or gain access to machinery and industrial equipment for a recurring fee or subscribe to various add-ons? Through the use of IoT-enabled sensors and devices, the answer is a resounding yes.

A good example of this is Rolls Royce’s TotalCare program for aircraft engines. The company no longer simply sells engines to airlines. Instead, it invoices them on a Power-by-the-Hour basis, while continually monitoring the engines. This means airlines no longer need to buy, operate, or maintain engines, nor do they have to train personnel on repairs, or purchase and store spare parts. Instead, if an engine needs servicing, Rolls Royce takes care of it. And if the engine breaks down? The responsibility again falls on Rolls Royce. This allows both the airline and Rolls Royce to focus on what they do best: the airline moving passengers from point A to point B and Rolls Royce delivering a reliable service for its engines.

Rolls Royce is able to do this through embedded machine sensors and devices, which provide a steady stream of data on aircraft engine health metrics. In other words, the data that is fed back to the manufacturer provides information on the condition of parts and the overall product, allowing Rolls Royce to engage in predictive maintenance – i.e., address any challenges such as wear and tear or even potential failures long before they ever become a real problem, or, should anything break unexpectedly, Rolls Royce is automatically notified, allowing them to respond quickly.  This keeps equipment in service and also leads to an extended lifecycle, so it’s win-win for both Rolls Royce and its customers.

There are a number of compelling reasons why manufacturers should consider servitization:

Revenue growth & profitability

By adding services to your offering, you increase your number of revenue streams and those become recurring. Complimenting your existing product portfolio with ongoing services to your customers allows your income to become more predictable and secure, which in turn helps insulate you from fluctuating market conditions or a slow sales month.

Equipment complexity

We all know that machines and other equipment have become increasingly complex and technical, and it isn’t really possible for all customers to have the required level of expertise to effectively maintain their equipment. You, as the manufacturer, have the requisite knowledge and experience needed to not just understand how to operate and perform maintenance on machines, but to also advise on how to best maximize performance.

Improved customer outcomes

Focusing on solutions instead of products allows you to think in terms of your customers’ needs and goals, which means you can adapt products and services to help them achieve those outcomes, as well as helps you to respond faster to issues and challenges that may arise. The resulting increase in customer satisfaction builds a stronger relationship and increased loyalty.

Higher entry barriers

The more established your relationship with you customers, the more difficult it is for someone to come in and steal market share. Servitization means your customers benefit from your support and knowledge in real terms, every day.

If you would like to learn more about how IoT can help your business, please get in touch.

Industrial IoT (IIoT) leverages connectivity to optimize manufacturing and industrial processes through the use of smart sensors and devices. IIoT enables end-to-end visibility of the production process, and the network of connected devices, smart machines, and real-time analytics produces a slew of data – both real-time and historical – that brings new levels of productivity, efficiency, and cost savings.

Here are just some of the benefits Industrial IoT brings:

Remote Monitoring

Remote monitoring allows you to visualize, track, and control both your facility and your assets without having to be onsite. Through the use of IoT technology, you gain greater visibility into things like asset performance, resource consumption, and equipment lifecycles and functionality.

Predictive Maintenance

More than 75% of equipment and system failures occur without notice. Through the use of sensors, IIoT does away with scheduled – often unnecessary – maintenance; instead, you are able to identify anomalies or problems with your equipment in real-time, allowing you to address challenges swiftly and minimizing downtime. This improves productivity and helps you to avoid costly repairs, while making better use of your maintenance staff.

Improved Workflows & Processes

Monitoring the entire production line helps identify bottlenecks, process gaps, and other challenges that can delay production, while also enabling more efficient planning and optimization of any line’s accuracy, speed, and production volume.

Reduce Human Error

Real people will continue to be essential for many tasks, but IIoT will bring digitalization to every step of your operation, leading to a reduction in manual processes and interventions. Smart sensors deployed across your factory floor will provide constant feedback. So, for example, if there is an accident, the entire facility can be alerted to potential hazards, while machines will automatically halt, and maintenance staff dispatched. Wearables can also be employed, such as smart wristbands that feature sound pressure level sensors that warn staff of loud areas where hearing can be damaged. Smart hardhats can track not just the wearer’s location, they can also monitor heartrate, temperature, and humidity – and even warn wearers of dangers such as heatstroke long before any symptoms arise.

Sustainability & Energy Savings

Industrial accounts for 54% of global delivered electricity, which means it’s not great for sustainability and it’s not great for your bottom line. Continuous monitoring of your setup via sensors and devices can expose wastefulness due to inefficiencies.  IIoT also allows you to predict energy demands and optimize future energy consumption – and this includes not just managing your equipment, but your overall operation, such as managing building temperature, water usage, humidity, and lighting. Additionally, as IoT technology evolves, sensors are using less energy, another bonus for your bottom line.

It’s not always crystal clear how your particular IoT Journey will look. The steps you take along the way may follow a clear path, or you may take unexpected turns as your business grows and evolves. One thing is clear, though: with the right support and services you’ll get the most from your IoT journey, no matter where it takes you.

When you started your IoT journey you probably had a business case that would best be realized by connecting things. Everyone’s experience is different and sometimes, when devices are first deployed, controlling that deployment is not at the top of the to-do list;  maybe the deployment wasn’t so big that it needed many changes so contacting the help desk for any changes was all you really needed. It was relatively simple, and you were just happy to have coverage.

Now you had more control and started optimizing your costs, and maybe even started to see the possibilities of new revenue streams, due the data you had. Time passed and new requirements made you reconsider your connectivity provider or your choice of connectivity technology, meaning you now had not one or two but three (or even more) legacy deployments.  Your choices now have you on three parallel IoT journeys, but that’s what customers wanted, right? Complexity was increasing, overview and control was hard, not to mention all those issues with data layers. The need to unify and simplify them became apparent and you began using products that helped you do that.

Once your connectivity was unified you continued to grow, again deploying more devices and getting more data and it’s at this point that you saw that you needed to get deeper into business analytics and get better insights into how your devices were performing – after all, big data is a hygiene factor these days. Online GUI is great, but you want those insights and data delivered straight into your own systems. API and streaming are the way forward, and you now need smarter connectivity.

Because you were determined to get the most from your IoT deployment you made it smarter and in turn, your business continued to grow. You might have started with 500 devices but now have 50 000 or even 100 000+ and are deploying in places you wouldn’t have dreamed of a few years ago – but which come with their own regulatory challenges. At this point you have a completely different set of requirements from both a global connectivity perspective and a quality perspective. You require low latency and probably attractive pricing beyond the retail offer.

Fragmented technologies, unpredictable connectivity costs, and regulatory difficulties might be just a few of the challenges you’re facing.  And the off-the-shelf connectivity everyone is offering is no longer enough for deployments of this nature. You need something bespoke that is tailored to your needs, but you don’t want to be heavily investing in building up an IoT/Telco company inhouse to deliver all of this – you want it delivered as-a-Service.

You’re always going to need your global SIMs with roaming agreements, you’re still going to need analytics, and you will always need to unify because who knows what technology lies around the corner? Your choices now should future proof your IoT solution, no matter what comes tomorrow .

The good news is that if you’ve made considered choices along the way you have already implemented technologies, products, and services that build upon one another, so as you reach unicorn status it’s really just a matter of adding that final layer that will make everything you’ve built work in harmony, like a well-oiled machine.

Building from the bottom up and adding layers where and when needed will take a lot of pain out of your IoT journey. With Tele2 IoT it doesn’t matter where you are in your journey – our solutions are built like legos stacked on top of one another: they fit with whatever you are building, whether that’s getting your deployment off the ground, unifying an already-complex solution, or giving you the tools you need to manage your global deployment in one consolidated access technology-agnostic platform.

While drones have long been associated with costly military applications or, on the other end of the spectrum, hobbyist tech gadgets, these days they are increasingly being shaped by practical commercial applications. In recent years, drone usage has broadened across a wide range of industries, being used for everything from delivery, infrastructure and crop monitoring, and mapping to industrial site inspection, emergency response, and security surveillance. And as more and more industries discover the benefits drones bring to their businesses the use cases will continue to grow, with IoT technology bringing cost and operational efficiency.

Drones have been around for a long time, with the concept of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) stretching back to 1849, when Austria attacked Venice using unmanned balloons filled with explosives. But while militaries around the world have largely driven drone technology since then, drones have also moved powerfully into both consumer and commercial spaces.

Logistics

In the US alone, the Delivery Drones Market grew from $40 million to $1 billion between 2012 and 2017, with that number doubling by 2020. By 2026, it is expected to reach $5.6 billion.

Last mile delivery is the most expensive and difficult leg of a package’s journey, making up around 50% of total distribution costs. Drone technology optimizes last mile delivery by transporting packages from nearby warehouses or distribution centers to a specific address.

And unlike traditional delivery vehicles, drones can ‘fly as the crow flies’, allowing them to avoid traffic and or circuitous delivery paths. Drones are also fast, making same day delivery the norm in many areas – and in some cases even making ‘same hour’ delivery a possibility.

This also means there are environmental benefits when drones are used for delivery: the average delivery of a package by truck creates around 1kg of greenhouse gas emissions. Drones, on the other hand, reduce both energy consumption and the release of greenhouse gasses, because they generally run on battery power. If those batteries are charged with green energy, the substantial amount of carbon emitted from commercial and industrial transportation will be significantly reduced.

Beyond deliveries, drones will increase warehouse efficiencies, circling the perimeter of warehouses to conduct safety inspections, while also supporting inspections, preventative maintenance, and the repair of complex machinery within a manufacturing plant. Drones can also be used to speed up pick and put away processes, with lightweight drones being as an alternative to conveyer belts or forklifts for retrieving and putting away orders.

And finally, intelligent drones are crucial where other modes of transport are not viable, such as delivering vital relief and medical supplies to disaster zones or in other emergency situations.

Agriculture

With the global population expected to hit 9.6 billion by 2050, innovative agricultural practices will be vital in order to feed everyone. Smart drone tech will enable the application of precision agriculture techniques, which ensure efficiency of inputs such as water and fertilizer, while maximizing productivity, quality, and yield. Precision agriculture also helps minimize pests, unwanted flooding, and disease. In other words, drones are revolutionizing agriculture and offering major costs savings, enhanced efficiency, and increased profitability.

Drones can carry out comprehensive monitoring of crops and livestock conditions, with the ability to quickly spot problems that might not be apparent from the ground. By quickly surveying wide swaths of farmland, drones can map the property, predict and monitor crop growth, report on crop health, monitor irrigation, and improve spraying accuracy. Just one example would be time-lapse drone photography revealing that a crop is not being properly irrigated.

The ability to collect and analyze data in real time has very tangible outcomes: better crop yield, better use of resources, and data-driven decision making. Additionally, with the ability to identify pests, weeds, diseases and nutritional efficiencies in the early stages, there is a reduced need for harmful pesticides and other chemicals.

You can read more about IoT and Agriculture here.

Industrial applications

Inspection and maintenance of industrial facilities can be both challenging and dangerous. Things like boilers, furnaces, mines, power grids, seaports, oil and gas – these all have areas that can be hard to access and can pose health hazards to workers. Smart drones, though, expedite maintenance and inspections in a much safer way: through the use of sensors and cameras, drones gather data which is then relayed in real time to an inspector, who can then act on that information in a safe and secure way.

Drones can be used in operations such as oil and gas facilities for security, surveillance, emergency response, and infrastructure inspection. At seaports, operational oversight, port monitoring, traffic control, mapping, and surveying can all be performed by drones. When it comes to mining, drones have a number of applications, such as mine surveying, inventory management, stockpile estimation, and hot spot detection. Additionally, drones can provide detailed information about potential sites before a mining project is begun. Drones can also access high-toxic and/or hard to reach areas and can be a vital tool in emergency response.

Construction

The construction industry is already investing heavily in drones and is one of the main adopters of the technology – and with good reason. Drones provide a birds-eye view of construction sites, machinery, and people, providing crucial information before, during, and after a project, as well as monitor its progress. Drones have access to places that are normally inaccessible or dangerous to inspect, such as roofs, recording and relaying real-time data and reducing accidents while increasing site safety.

Traditional land surveillance methods require a lot of labor, time, and money. Drones, on the other hand, provide valuable information on terrain and land distribution at a fraction of the cost. They do this by having a bird’s eye view of the entire site, inspecting the land with a much higher accuracy than previously possible, with the data collected being used by engineers to measure things like land dimensions and elevation changes.

When it comes to existing structures, 3D models can be created from scans made by drones, which can be helpful when it comes to renovations and retrofitting, as well as for inspections, potentially avoiding disasters such as the recent Surfside condo collapse in Florida. Data can also be converted into building models, allowing clients to have a better understanding of spaces and a view of final outcomes before the construction work even begins.

One of the more common drone applications on construction sites is supervision and progress checkups throughout the lifespan of the building project. Drones monitor progress by overlaying captured images onto building designs and drawings, allowing confirmation – or not – that the project is moving forward according to plan. The images can also be used to identify flaws and help eliminate human error when it comes to quality inspection and supervision.

Post-construction, drones can assess damage following natural disasters such as hurricanes or tornados, identifying the extent of damage and pinpointing which areas need immediate attention. They can also be used to identify victims and guide emergency workers in a safer manner.

Speaking of safety, construction sites can of course be dangerous places. Inspections carried out manually can expose workers to accidents and injury, particularly when heights are involved. Drones remove or reduce risks while also providing a higher level of inspection accuracy.

There are myriad other commercial applications for drones, such as sewer maintenance, insurance, filmmaking, and public safety. The use cases will continue to grow as the technology evolves. When IoT is added into the mix, the possibilities will become nearly endless.

If you would like to learn more about how IoT can enable your business, please get in touch..