Offering an end-to-end solution means companies don’t need to worry about the ins and outs of how the Buddywise solution works – they do what they do best and Buddywise does the rest.
“The biggest preparatory work we have with our customers is making sure we do a very thorough due diligence in terms of how we deal with customer data,” explains Lamin Faye. “Where we store it, how security works – it is extremely important to both Buddywise and our customers that we do a thorough data security assessment so that everyone is comfortable with things like privacy. This is the most important part that the customer needs to be involved in, apart from us really understanding where their challenges are. Beyond that, our solution is ready out of the box and improves continuously as the AI models learn based on site-specific data. .”
All data generated by Buddywise is encrypted, both in transit and in storage. Although they analyze data in real time, very little data is actually saved. The only time it is saved is if there is a trigger, such as someone falling down or another incident happens, which is for accident investigation purposes.
IoT & Connectivity
IoT is only as smart as the signals you give it and sensors have tended to be very single purpose. Computer vision continues to be one of the most, if not the most, critical method of connecting the real and digital worlds and is adding intelligence to IoT which makes it very useful. In light of this, Buddywise plans on integrating wearables and other devices going forward in order to further enhance worker safety.
“As IoT matures, you can see where sensors will become multi-purpose, and the possibilities to build ecosystems are enormous” says Lamin Faye. “One sensor could also be used to monitor temperature, pollution and air quality, and this is as true in a factory or warehouse as anywhere else, where building an ecosystem that uses our AI and cameras and integrates them with wearables or other types of sensors will mean an even clearer picture of what is happening in real time.”
Analyzing in real time means streaming a lot of data – Buddywise analyzes up to 30 frames per second, so that’s a lot of data. The only sensors they use currently are cameras – Buddywise can assist in securing cameras for customers from their partner Axis, or they can integrate existing cameras. Buddywise also offers SIMs if needed – some people are happy with their existing connectivity, but Tele2 IoT connectivity is also available.
“The thing that makes Tele2 IoT stand out for us is that it has a broad company footprint in the B2B sector, and are really focused on industrial IoT, which isn’t the case with other providers,” says Lamin Faye. “Additionally, Tele2 IoT has its cloud interconnect setup that we value a lot and allows us to provide customers with secure private connectivity, which also has a very good connectivity to our servers.
“Tele2 IoT also has a global footprint and has the roaming agreements we may require going forward. Additionally, the dialogue has always been good in terms of price and other factors and Tele2 IoT has continually kept that dialogue going on a variety of issues. I’m convinced that when we move into countries where roaming agreements will be increasingly important, Tele2 IoT will have the solution we need and business models where everyone is happy.”
The future
Within the next ten to twelve months, Buddywise will have more than 1000 cameras under contract and that number is expected to double in the following year. They also will be adding more ‘bells and whistles’ to their offering not only to address the needs of their customers but to also take advantage of rapidly evolving technology.
“People often come to me with ‘wild ideas’ but as technology develops these ideas become less ‘wild’ and more reality,” says Lamin Faye. “So, as we as a company develop, we will see more ‘wild ideas’ becoming reality. A picture is ‘rich data’ and I don’t need to install a new sensor to take advantage of new technology – I just need to train the AI to detect new safety situations, so we have everything we need to evolve and that’s the really cool thing about this – we will never run out of possibilities. Some things today are really complicated, but the challenges will be solved. One current topic is detecting fall arrest harnesses, where we want to see if people are wearing it when working at height. Right now we can’t do that, but 6 months from now we will be able to do it – and that will further protect workers and increase safety in the workplace, which is what Buddywise is all about.”
