About Client
Headquartered in the United States, our client stands out as a leading manufacturer of data loggers and monitoring solutions since 1981.
These data loggers, used in various industries such as renewable energy, agriculture, and cold chain logistics, measure parameters like air and water temperature, relative humidity, CO2, and light have a broad range of applications, from verifying the performance of green buildings and renewable energy systems to agricultural and tracking the temperature-sensitive products in storage or in transit.
Challenges
Data loggers, whether used in controlled indoor environments like cold storage units or in outdoor settings like agricultural monitoring, require specialized applications tailored to their specific capabilities. However, their customers who are large enterprises would still need to work with multiple applications to monitor and control such varied data loggers.
While the data collected from the data loggers was being managed on the existing AWS platform, managing different applications across iOS, Android, and Windows was becoming increasingly difficult for the client. Even as the operations are remote, the number of devices our client has installed reaches into the millions and significant challenges were encountered, such as:
- No single platform to connect and control multiple BLE-enabled data loggers: With different applications for each platform to control multiple devices and lack of uniform customer experience, connecting and controlling them was both time-consuming and effort-intensive, hampering the overall efficiency.
- Huge complexity in managing devices & scalability issues: Onboarding new devices, configuring them, and managing their updates is a monumental challenge. They had separate applications for Android and iOS. The use of different applications for various data loggers led to significant issues in maintaining and updating such applications for each platform involving a separate effort for each. This led to increased lead times and cost for development as well as deployment. Thereby hampering overall scalability of the entire initiative.
- Lack of remote monitoring of devices: A significant hurdle was the inability to connect to data loggers and capture data in real-time, which led to a conspicuous lack of data monitoring, affecting timely decision-making and responses.
Solution
To overcome these challenges, our client decided to unify the development of all platforms to ensure all features are available on all platforms and that apps are updated regularly. Therefore, they decided to engage Saviant to firstly develop a UWP application in place of their existing app; that exists separately for different platforms. This application could be used on all platforms without code change.
However, the Saviant team proposed a cross-platform approach to build a single platform to connect to the BLE enabled data loggers via mobile Bluetooth. Xamarin Enterprise Mobility Architecture was developed for the cross platform mobile application across iOS, Android, and Windows UWP. The users needed to connect to the devices and configure them for –
- Configuration and Control
- Monitoring and Diagnostics
- Software updates and maintenance
To address the diverse needs of the data loggers, Saviant developed two distinct applications. Each was tailored to the data logger’s specific functionalities, ensuring precise data capture and display. Whether monitoring indoor settings like cold storage units or outdoor environments such as agriculture, these applications provided accurate and relevant insights, enhancing the monitoring process.
Additionally, these mobile apps provide the capability to read and upload the logged data to cloud. The mobile operations are designed to work in online and offline mode with mobile devices acting as temporary storage for data before pushing into cloud environment. The BLE gateways can be configured for preprogrammed data upload/offload at regular intervals.
To further enhance the solution, the team has added new features such as multilingual support, bulk data export, data dashboards, and more. Data download from multiple loggers at a time has also been made easy. With changing dynamics of devices and their capabilities, the customer software platform is under constant upgrade to ensure the solution remains relevant amidst evolving technologies.
Benefits
- Minimum and no code changes for new data loggers: The unified platform allows for seamless integration of new data loggers with minimal or no code changes, streamlining the process and reducing development time.
- Operational efficiency and field operations management: Field engineers were enabled to easily configure and manage IoT devices in remote locations, reducing the complexity and time traditionally associated with remote device management.
- Cost savings and financial efficiency for diverse sectors: The unified platform reduced operational costs and augmented uptime, benefiting a wide range of end-customers and facilitating efficient financial and resource management. Additionally, the solution significantly reduced the operational costs for hundreds of NGOs globally, optimizing their environmental monitoring activities and resource utilization.
- Maintenance, upkeep, and quick release cycles: The solution streamlined maintenance of all data loggers, helping optimal functionality and longevity, pivotal for maintaining data accuracy and reliability across various applications and sectors. The system also enabled quicker release cycles for software updates and bug fixes, which meant that the platform operated with the latest functionalities and minimal disruptions.
- Handling massive data points and enhancing analytical capabilities: The system’s capability to handle over 1 million data points per each data logger, even with varied logging intervals, ensured accurate data capture and effective representation for analysis and decision-making.
Impact
The client is now able to deliver device monitoring and analytics for various environmental and agricultural field applications. Field engineers are able to easily configure and manage IoT devices in vicinity. This has also reduced the cost of operations for 100s of NGOs across the globe.
The client’s smart devices or data loggers boast a 0.2 accuracy in measuring data which is extremely critical in pharmaceutical operations, enabling a scalable Indoor Monitoring platform. The data loggers and gateways facilitate a connected indoor instruments/devices environment to create a healthy, energy efficient, and accurate data system. The range of applications included:
- Indoor Air Quality Monitoring – humidity, CO2, and temperature
- HVAC system diagnostics – failure, mechanical issues, vibrations
- Application in Preservation and Museums – Relative humidity and CO2 monitoring
- Warehouse Management and Cold chain monitoring
- Facility Management for energy efficient operations
- Energy auditing across indoor spaces
Now, Saviant is an integral part of their 3-year roadmap, ensuring continuous innovation and enhancement of their solutions.