RE:Sportsguy, what is game changing
Speedyg5344 wrote: Aside from the added functionality and low cost of BEW's beacons compared to rfid, is the fact that asset tracking can be achieved any where within a LPWAN what is game changing about Bew's product suite? In other words,within a LPWAN covering the US for example, range is no longer an issue? Thank you very much in advance for enlightening me.
BeWhere currently has 2 offerings category:
1- Bluetooth Beacons.
2- LPWA (aka mobile-IoT beacons): uses the LTE-M or NB-IoT cellular protocols.
The current market place looks like this:
a) RFID tags
b) Telematics units (2G or 3G cellular units + GPS for fleet management attached on cars and tracks)
c) WiFi tags
-------------------------------------------------------------
RFID and WiFi tags, and Bluetooth beacons are all for closed-loop applications, e.g. within a specific perimeter. RFID is the most expensive and has the most complexity because of the required "reader", which can be thousands of $, and the RF (Radio Frequency) considerations. Furthemore, RFID tags without sensors can cost as much as the Bluetooth beacons with sensors -- the price of RFID tags increase with their range. WiFi tags are also pricey and not battery efficient so they wouldn't last long.
Telematics units are 2G- or 3G-based cellular based devices with GPS used to monitor cars and trucks because of their very high cost (few hundred $ per device). They aren't battery efficient whatsoever and require an external power source: the car or truck battery. So you could add sensors to them, but what's the point when you have LPWA beacons that are an order of magnitude cheaper and have a smaller form factor?
By now, you should see where the LPWA beacons fits in the market. They are for open-source applications (e.g. for moving assets or a varying perimeter) or very large areas and allow data collection (GPS position, temperature, humidity, detect a fall/movement, etc.) for so many applications that were once prohibited due to high costs, terrible battery life, high cost and large form factor. So that's why I saw that LPWA is the new telematics market, and I believe it will be a multiple times larger because there are many times more devices that will be connected. The only difference between LTE-M and NB-IoT is that they are different protocols, akin to 2G and 3G. NB-IoT is even more battery efficient and has a greater zone coverage per cell tower; however it requires new cell towers. LTE-M is a software update on LTE towers so no new towers need to be put (capex is smaller), but they aren't as battery efficient and their covergae is significantly less.