Could you tell us what Seemoto is?
Marko Kyrölä: Seemoto is a web-based service for environment monitoring including wireless sensors, gateways and cloud data storage that is owned by MeshWorks Wireless. We are a Finnish company and have ten years of experience in internet of things (IoT) technologies. Even though Seemoto is able to observe almost anything in the environment in which we live, we are focusing on temperature monitoring in the food and pharmaceuticals cold chain.
What applications is Seemoto suited to?
With Seemoto, you can monitor temperature and humidity of warehouses, cold-storage environments and shipments. The real-time data can be accessed on your computer, smartphone or tablet. Its versatile alert system notifies you by email or SMS if something unexpected happens; for example, if the temperature goes outside of predefined limits during transportation, the driver will be notified by SMS alert to check whether the trailer door is fully closed. When installed on a vehicle, the Seemoto gateway uses GPS location service to store the route. You can easily check the temperature in every location of the transport. The service offers a wide set of graphical reports to visualise measurement data.
The sensors are used in warehouses, stores, trucks and trailers, thermo boxes and cold storages. Because they are wireless, they are easy to set up for measuring temperatures in rooms, refrigerators, freezers and movable cool boxes.
Who are your primary customers?
Seemoto is widely used in various healthcare applications and environments. Our main customers are pharmaceutical wholesalers, hospitals, laboratories, pharmacies and transportation companies. Our temperature monitoring solution suits all stakeholders throughout the whole supply chain, from manufacturer to end user. We have customers on five continents and in more than ten countries. The solution has proved to be truly global.
What is the Seemoto device portfolio?
Seemoto devices are divided into two groups: sensors and gateways. Battery-operated sensors measure temperature and humidity in five-minute intervals when they are inserted into a special wall plate. Waterproof sensors have several years of battery life. For packages and boxes, we have a temperature logger with an on/off switch. We also have sensors with an external probe for deep freezers and other extreme environmental conditions.
The Seemoto gateway acts as a link between sensors and the cloud service. We have separate gateways for mobile network and fixed Ethernet connections.
What is special about your company’s devices?
Seemoto devices are small, wireless and extremely easy to install. Most customers install the devices by themselves. They just connect the gateway to the power source, click sensors to wall plates and take them to the measurement points. Finally, our customer support checks the installation and system performance remotely, and then it is ready to use. All this normally takes less than half an hour. Our web service is very user-friendly. The most common feedback we get is, "This was really easy install and the user interface is very intuitive. I was able to use it right away."
How many sensors can one gateway support?
One mobile gateway connects directly to 20 sensors, which, in usual customer cases, is adequate. By adding more gateways and router devices, it is possible to support hundreds, even thousands of sensors in one area. During installations, it is often important to understand that certain features such as thick walls can affect signal strengths. For warehouses or retail spaces that have many floors, we recommend one gateway for each floor. If there is a large number of sensors in one place, we have an Ethernet-connected gateway that can support hundreds of sensors in the area.
Do you have an external interface to access the measurement data?
We have a JSON interface on top of which the customer can build their own applications that use collected data. The same interface has also been used for data integration purposes, such as temperature data integration to a customer’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.
How does Seemoto remain compliant with regulations? Is the system validated?
Seemoto fulfils EN 12830, GDP and FDA cfr 21 part 11 regulatory requirements. All Seemoto sensors are factorycalibrated, very accurate and come with a two-year calibration certificate. We also offer a special sensor recalibration service. In Seemoto’s secure cloud service, all measurement data is stored for five years minimum.
Our service is validated as a platform. We also offer validation-related services to our customers to meet all customer-specific installation, operational and processqualification- related requirements easily.
