Over the past few years, IoT has become increasingly accessible to all parts of society as a valuable tool to collect data and make systems run more efficiently. In Katherine Lazarevich’s article, she overviews 10 new IoT initiatives that could prospectively change how we approach sustainability as it pertains to agriculture, clean energy, solar power, water conservation, and smart buildings.
1. Clean Agriculture
IoT is branching out to encompass more than just the fields of tech and industrial manufacturing. Initiatives like the ones summarized above show how IoT can enable everyone to partake in creating a more sustainable world. Proper conservation and resource allocation can increase time and cost-efficiency for both businesses and consumers, thus protecting both the environment and our bank accounts simultaneously.
1. Clean Agriculture
- PrecisionHawk Drones utilize the power of IoT to conduct an in-depth analysis of agriculture fields and map safe fly routes in order to collect data even in poor weather.
- Agrisource Data collects information for farmers through in-field sensors and then proposes strategies to improve things such as irrigation and crop health.
- WattTime uses IoT to connect electronic devices to the power grid and then allows the device to choose the cleanest supplier to draw energy from.
- Ecobee is a smart thermostat that allows people to control the temperature in specific parts of their house from their personal devices. I mean, why waste energy to provide heat or AC to a room that is hardly ever used?
- Alencon Systems uses IoT and VR to optimize the efficiency of a photovoltaic plant’s architecture, thus reducing the costs and common failures of traditional solar fields.
- Sunpartner Technologies introduces the ability to power cars, phones, and even buildings with solar energy through their Smart Surfaces. This technology is essentially a photovoltaic surface with IoT enabled sensors that can be fitted to work with all sorts of devices.
- Wexus bundles an entire IoT based data collection system for irrigation into an easily accessible app for farmers. The app analyzes water usage data and suggests ways to conserve more of that precious H2O.
- APANA prevents large scale water loss by identifying problems in water infrastructure. The system pinpoints problematic areas early on and provides a guide to fix the issue.
- Digital Lumens utilizes sensors to automatically adjust lighting in a room based on personal preferences and the time of day.
- enVerid makes it possible to drastically decrease the cost of HVAC systems by using IoT enabled sensors to keep track of air quality in real-time and clean the indoor air as needed, rather than switching it for outdoor air every couple hours (which wastes a ton of energy).
IoT is branching out to encompass more than just the fields of tech and industrial manufacturing. Initiatives like the ones summarized above show how IoT can enable everyone to partake in creating a more sustainable world. Proper conservation and resource allocation can increase time and cost-efficiency for both businesses and consumers, thus protecting both the environment and our bank accounts simultaneously.
