Thinxtra’s Sigfox Technology to Monitor School Signs in New Zealand

Thinxtra’s Sigfox network now covers 88 per cent of the New Zealand population, from Invercargill to Whangarei. With such a strong network deployment, Sigfox ready IoT solutions can be implemented nearly everywhere on the island. This is the case with monitoring school signs.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Auckland Transport is among the organisations that have started to utilise the IoT network, and acknowledges an opportunity to improve school safety by connecting school zone road signs to the network.
• Proof of concept solution developed by Massey University in conjunction with Auckland-based industrial design company Motiv.
• The University was first connected in 2016 and is the first university on both sides of the Tasman to have full Sigfox coverage. It now has coverage at all its campuses and has partnered with Thinxtra to develop IoT solutions.

Associate Professor Johan Potgieter says the live trial is in place at three schools and has demonstrated the impact that IoT will have on the everyday lives of New Zealanders by automatically monitoring the status of safety equipment (electronic school zone signs).

“Controlling the school signs used to rely on a manual operation, often by the school’s receptionist, over a short range RF link. There was no visibility on the status of the signs, which often relied on the public or school to report their condition. Now the signs are connected to the Sigfox network, real-time information on their status and full control and monitoring is now available on a web application.”

“We were delighted to be involved in one of the first projects using the new IoT network now available in New Zealand, which could revolutionise the ITS (Intelligent Traffic Systems) sector,” continued Professor Johan.

Thinxtra is empowering the Internet of Things in Asia Pacific by deploying the world-leading Sigfox LPWA network as well as building a full eco-system of IoT solutions and services to enable the non-connected to connect, to increase productivity, accelerate decision making, improve quality of service and quality of life, and find more economical solutions to common problems. Sigfox is the world’s leading provider of connectivity for the Internet of Things (IoT). The company has built a global network to connect billions of devices to the Internet while consuming as little energy as possible.

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