With a growing population, it comes as no surprise that we’re consuming more and more energy every year. The International Energy Agency expects global energy demand to increase by 37% by 2040, which would put incredible strain on energy supplies. Springing from this growing demand comes a growing need to find ways to alleviate the pressure – in enters IoT. Smart meters offer the ability to monitor and detect potential hazards, in the case of water pipes or display increases or decreases in energy consumption.
Meshify is a smart environments company specialised in easy-to-use IoT sensors that help monitor and protect apartment buildings and commercial properties. We spoke to Lewis at Meshify about their use of the Pygate and experience with Pycom as a partner. Here’s what he told us:
What challenges did you face in your industry that led to you choosing Pycom?
We struggled with finding low cost hardware that was both easy to develop and could be brought to market quickly. Pycom answered, and continues to answer, both of those needs. It offers low-cost boards that are easy to program and rapidly helped us move from idea to product.
How would you describe your process in one sentence prior to using our product?
To summarise our process prior to using Pycom’s products: it was far more expensive!
What was the deal breakers for you to become a customer?
For us, reliability was key. We couldn’t create a product and have it pack-up halfway through the job.We didn’t want to have our customers lose faith in us. So we’ve trusted Pycom to make sure that that doesn’t happen. So far so good.
How did you first hear about Pycom?
I’m not certain, but I believe that it was a Kickstarter campaign they ran back in 2017. It might have been for the FiPy or the PyGo but either way, we were interested and knew that we wanted to see if we could work with the company.
What most attracted you to our products?
We were drawn to Pycom’s products for two reasons; the ability to write Python and their focus on LoRaWAN. Our developers are used to coding in Python, so we wanted to find products that we could seamlessly work with. As Pycom are also part of the LoRa Alliance, we knew that they would be well informed about current and new uses of LoRaWAN features.
How do you use our products in your solution?
We use Pycom’s products in a LoRaWAN gateway. I can’t disclose much more than that!
What results have you seen since implementing them?
At the moment, we have yet to scale. However, due to the low cost of the devices we believe that we will be able to meet the price points needed to scale. We are looking forward to seeing what 2020 holds for us!
What would you tell others who are undecided about Pycom?
It only took me 56 minutes to get the FiPy up and running on all networks available. Need I say more?
More about Meshify: URL: https://meshify.com