Understanding Location Technologies for IoT

When it comes to knowing “where in the world” your devices are, manufacturers aren’t settling for just one answer to the question. Here are three options for determining device location:

• GPS/GNSS: Provides global coverage with high accuracy in outdoor environments
• Cell Tower Triangulation: Works by measuring signals from multiple cellular towers
• WiFi Triangulation: Uses nearby WiFi access points to calculate position

Each approach has distinct advantages and limitations that make them better suited for different use cases and environments.

GPS/GNSS: Global Satellite Positioning

GPS (Global Positioning System) and other GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) determine location by measuring the time it takes for signals to travel from multiple satellites to the receiver:

• The device receives signals from four or more orbiting satellites
• Each satellite transmits its precise location and the exact time the signal was sent
• The receiver calculates the distance to each satellite based on signal travel time
• The device’s position is determined by triangulating these distances

This approach provides global coverage and works without relying on local infrastructure, making it ideal for outdoor tracking applications, despite limitations requiring line of site to satellites.

Cell Tower Triangulation: Leveraging Cellular Networks

Cell tower triangulation uses data from multiple cellular towers to pinpoint a device’s location:

• The device connects to or detects signals from nearby cell towers
• Signal strength and tower location data are collected
• Algorithms process this information to calculate the device’s position
• The estimated location is derived from the intersection points of coverage areas

While a single tower connection can provide rough location data that can be accurate within several hundred meters, connecting to multiple towers significantly improves accuracy, offering the potential to estimate device location within tens of meters.

WiFi Triangulation: Precision for Indoor Environments

WiFi triangulation is similar to cell tower triangulation but works by leveraging WiFi access points:

• The device scans for nearby WiFi access points
• Information about visible access points (SSID, MAC address, signal strength) is collected
• This data is cross-referenced against databases of known WiFi locations
• A precise location estimate is calculated based on this information

WiFi triangulation often delivers superior accuracy in urban and indoor environments and can easily achieve accuracy within a few meters. This makes it particularly valuable for indoor asset tracking.

The Business Value of Multi-Technology Asset Tracking

Why settle for just one tracking technology? Modern IoT deployments benefit from having multiple location-determining technologies available. Implementing a flexible location tracking approach offers several advantages:

• Improved Reliability – By combining multiple location technologies, devices can be located from open outdoor spaces to building interiors and urban canyons, ensuring continuous visibility.
• Optimized Power Management – Different location technologies can be selected based on power availability and accuracy requirements:
• GPS for high-precision outdoor tracking when power is available
• WiFi triangulation for indoor tracking with minimal power consumption
• Cell tower triangulation as a reliable backup when other methods aren’t available
• Extended Device Lifespan – Selecting location technology based on environment and power constraints can significantly extend battery life and reducing maintenance costs.

Blues Notecard: Simplifying Location Tracking

Blues Notecard is designed to make wireless connectivity for embedded devices as simple as plug-and-play. Cellular Notecards come with GPS tracking as standard and, depending on which connectivity solution you choose for your device, offers a combination of triangulation technologies.

Notecard Cell+WiFi gives you a seamless way to do all three, GPS tracking, WiFi triangulation, and cell-tower triangulation, in a highly customizable way. And Notecard’s backing cloud service, Notehub, intelligently selects the “best” location from all available options; making it easy to keep track of where your devices are at all times. Whether your assets move through dense urban centers or remote areas with spotty coverage, this hybrid technology ensures continuous location visibility across all deployment scenarios.

Real-World Location Tracking Applications

Wondering how you could use location tracking to enhance your operation? Here are a few of the ways you could utilize Notecards’ built-in features:

Supply Chain & Logistics

Track shipments through warehouses, distribution centers, and retail locations where GPS signals are unavailable. With triangulation, companies gain end-to-end visibility into their supply chains, including indoor locations traditionally considered “blind spots.”

Industrial Equipment Monitoring

Monitor the location and usage of valuable equipment inside factories and warehouses without installing dedicated positioning infrastructure. The low-power requirements make tracking assets for years without battery replacement possible.

Smart Cities & Urban Monitoring

Deploy sensors throughout urban environments to monitor air quality, noise levels, traffic patterns, and more, all with precise location data even in challenging signal environments between tall buildings.

Healthcare Asset Management

Track critical medical equipment throughout healthcare facilities, ensuring that life-saving devices can be quickly located while reducing equipment loss.

The future of Location Tracking

As IoT deployments expand into increasingly challenging environments, having multiple location technologies available ensures continuous device visibility across all scenarios. By leveraging GPS, cellular, and WiFi triangulation as complementary technologies, solutions like the Blues Notecard enable comprehensive asset tracking with optimal power consumption and accuracy for each environment.

Whether you’re tracking assets through supply chains, monitoring equipment in industrial facilities, or deploying smart city sensors, the flexibility to choose the right location technology for each situation provides the reliability and accuracy your IoT applications demand, in any environment.

Are you ready to implement intelligent location tracking in your IoT solution? Notecard offers a plug-and-play approach that simplifies development while providing the security, reliability, and power efficiency required for real-world IoT deployments. Get in touch to hear more.

Additional Resources

• Get started with a Cell+WiFi Dev Kit 
• Download the guide to learn more about industrial equipment monitoring 
• Try an example app for continuous asset tracking 

The post Beyond GPS: Leveraging Cell + WiFi Triangulation for Precise IoT Location Tracking appeared first on Blues.

Cloud connectivity is at the heart of this transformation, a technology that enables patient data to be transmitted from monitoring equipment to the cloud. It enables healthcare providers to remotely monitor patient health trends and take timely action when necessary. 

The Changing Landscape of Healthcare 

The traditional model of healthcare, confined to the four walls of a hospital or clinic, is rapidly evolving. Patients, especially senior citizens, now strongly desire to ‘age in place’. This means they want to receive healthcare while remaining in the familiar surroundings of their homes. This shift in perspective presents a remarkable challenge and opportunity for healthcare providers. 

Simultaneously, the healthcare industry is moving away from the old paradigm of one-size-fits-all care. In its place, it’s adopting a proactive, data-driven approach. With technological advancements, healthcare professionals have access to vast amounts of patient data. This data is a veritable goldmine for anticipating health trends, intervening early, and delivering personalized treatments. 

A growing commitment to health equity is another factor reshaping healthcare. The goal is to make healthcare accessible to everyone, regardless of their financial means or geographic location. Remote patient monitoring is pivotal in this endeavor, ensuring healthcare services reach even the most underserved populations. 

But while the future is promising, it’s essential to recognize the challenges ahead for RPM manufacturers as they navigate this transformative journey. 

Key Challenges for Remote Patient Monitoring Device Manufacturers 

Although RPM is a promising frontier in healthcare, it comes with unique challenges. Manufacturers in this field must navigate these intricacies diligently to develop reliable and efficient solutions.  

• Reliability – Ensuring Data Integrity and Safety: The cornerstone of any RPM system is reliability. Unlike many other technologies where an occasional glitch may be a minor inconvenience, in healthcare, it could be a matter of life and death. RPM devices must maintain constant connectivity to ensure the integrity and safety of patient data. Even in challenging conditions, where connectivity might be limited, RPM devices must remain unwaveringly reliable and not leverage a solution that exclusively uses one connectivity technology but several redundancies.  
• Availability — Overcoming Supply Chain Woes: The RPM ecosystem is highly dependent on a consistent supply chain. Delays or disruptions in the supply chain can have cascading effects, causing significant hurdles for manufacturers. The burden of managing supply chains often falls on RPM manufacturers. Any hindrance in procuring essential components can ripple through the production process, potentially affecting the availability of vital RPM devices. 
• Compliance — Navigating the Regulatory Maze: Healthcare regulations, including the need for FDA clearance, present a formidable challenge to RPM manufacturers. Achieving compliance is a time-consuming and complex process that demands meticulous attention to detail. Regulatory bodies require comprehensive documentation and rigorous testing to ensure the safety and efficacy of RPM devices. Any alterations or updates to the device may necessitate revisiting the compliance process, which can significantly extend the time to market. 
• Privacy and Security — Safeguarding Patient Data: RPM revolves around the sensitive realm of patient health data. Consequently, the issue of privacy and security looms large over this field. The stringent privacy laws and regulations surrounding healthcare underscore the critical need for robust cybersecurity measures. RPM systems must guarantee the confidentiality and integrity of patient information through strict data encryption, secure boot procedures, and regular over-the-air (OTA) security updates. These measures are not merely recommended but essential to maintaining patient trust and complying with legal requirements.
• Pre-provisioned — Ready to Deploy: The process of deploying RPM devices involves numerous intricacies. Traditionally, it required setting up and configuring various components, including data plans and SIM cards. For RPM manufacturers, the challenge lies in simplifying this process. The term ‘pre-provisioned’ encapsulates the need for RPM devices to come ready to deploy, with cellular data plans pre-baked into the system. This simplification of the deployment process can significantly reduce the time and resources required to get RPM devices up and running. 

These challenges collectively represent a formidable landscape that RPM manufacturers must navigate. Addressing them comprehensively not only ensures the development of reliable and secure RPM solutions but also paves the way for a future where remote patient monitoring plays a pivotal role in healthcare delivery. 

The Future of Remote Patient Monitoring Devices with Cloud Connectivity

Cloud connectivity is driving a transformative wave in the realm of RPM devices. It’s not just about monitoring health; it’s about empowering patients to lead healthier lives and ensuring healthcare providers have the tools they need to deliver timely care. 

With cloud connectivity, RPM devices can seamlessly transmit critical patient data to secure, cloud-based servers. This enables healthcare professionals to monitor patient health trends in real time, facilitating early intervention when needed. Imagine a scenario where a patient’s vital signs change, triggering an alert, prompting immediate medical attention. Cloud-connected RPM devices make this a reality, ensuring patients receive timely care, even from the comfort of their homes. 

Cloud connectivity is also ushering in a new era of data-driven healthcare. The massive datasets generated by RPM devices can be harnessed to identify broader health trends, optimize treatments, and even predict health issues before they become critical. This shift from reactive to proactive healthcare can potentially reduce healthcare costs, improve patient outcomes, and ultimately save lives. 

Blues as Your RPM Connectivity Solution

Navigating the complex landscape of remote patient monitoring calls for a steadfast ally. That’s where Blues’ Notecard and Notehub step in. As a trusted partner, Blues is dedicated to addressing the challenges that RPM manufacturers encounter. 

Our commitment to reliability ensures that your RPM devices, powered by Notecard and connected through Notehub, remain connected even in the most challenging conditions.  Blues even builds Notecards with redundant cellular and even Wi-Fi failover built right in. We shoulder the burden of supply chain management, guaranteeing the availability of these cutting-edge technologies regardless of external disruptions. 

Connecting RPM with Notecard and Notehub 

Notecard and Notehub are the dynamic duo revolutionizing RPM. Notecard’s reliability is unmatched, ensuring that your RPM device maintains connectivity even in signal-challenged locations and safeguarding patient data integrity. When paired with Notehub, our ecosystem creates a seamless data transmission pipeline from patient equipment to the cloud, enabling real-time monitoring and proactive care. 

When it comes to compliance, Blues simplifies the regulatory maze by offering FTC compliance benefits and handling crucial security aspects, such as encrypted “off the internet” communications and pre-loaded certificates through an integrated secure element. Our emphasis on privacy and security ensures that patient data, transmitted seamlessly through Notehub, remains safeguarded at all times. 

With Blues, you get more than just a connectivity solution; you get a faithful ally. Our MinSpin service provides invaluable engineering support, making RPM product development swift and efficient. We abstract the complexities of connectivity with Notecard and Notehub, allowing you to focus on your core mission. 

Let Blues be your partner in transforming healthcare through RPM. Talk to one of our experts to get started today. 

Together, we can shape the future of healthcare. 

The post Navigating the Cloud in Remote Patient Monitoring Devices appeared first on Blues.

We’re currently experiencing disruptions in our transportation and logistics supply chain due to the COVID-19 pandemic that are highlighting existing inefficiencies. Cold chain delivery and is particularly impacted as populations around the world require direct delivery of food and medications, including the vaccine. Velvetwire’s StickerShockTM remote condition monitoring and tracking system provides real time data from manufacturer to local vaccination sites.

“The Blues Wireless team has been really responsive in understanding our needs and adapting the product to match what we need.” – Eric Bodnar, Founder & CEO Velvetwire

Tracking Assets in the Supply Chain

Today’s supply chain is complicated, with products changing hands up to 20 times in a typical global transit. There is no universal approach for tracking where something is, and prompt deliveries and accurate temperature conditions during storage and transport are critical for perishables in the food and pharmaceutical industries. Cold chain delivery is changing with the pandemic-affected economy’s increasing reliance on direct delivery of goods to consumers, and the extended shipping timelines we’re experiencing.

Shipping ports are closed or over-capacity, there is a shortage in ships and flights, and widespread labor shortages create conditions that prevent shipping from happening in a timely fashion. The traditional way of monitoring shipments has been to use a data logger. Data loggers are devices that attach to containers and log key data points during transport. The data is manually exported by a person who must locate the device and physically plug it into their laptop to transfer the information. This is not only costly and clumsy, but unless a shipment is intercepted, stakeholders receive insights after delivery.

Vaccine Cold Chain Monitoring

COVID-19 vaccines have a shelf life of about nine months. Due to the protracted shipping schedules, deliveries that traditionally arrived in two to three weeks are now taking up to six months. These shipping delays can create unstable environments for vaccines as shipments sit at facilities and ports.

According to a UNICEF official, more than 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines distributed to poor nations have been rejected due to their expiration date. If shipment integrity can’t be verified, it is likely that the vaccines will be destroyed, and if pharmaceutical companies can’t get information on a timely basis, they can’t mitigate issues that are delaying shipment. This creates two critical issues:

• Revenue loss: Disruption of condition monitoring within a facility or transportation of component goods can lead to millions of dollars of losses per day.
• Insurance complications: It becomes difficult to assess who’s responsible for loss when dealing with insurance settlements. It is costly to determine that without any information.

Pharmaceutical companies have billions of vaccines totaling in the millions of dollars in a single container shipment, making condition monitoring a business-critical issue. With remote condition monitoring and tracking, shipping managers can accurately record the conditions and location of vaccines throughout the transportation process, thus ensuring compliance in the supply chain. All interested parties can be confident that the strict environmental conditions have been met so vaccines can be safely administered.

Remote Condition Monitoring with IoT

Velvetwire is partnering with global technology providers to modernize the cold supply chain and make remote condition monitoring ubiquitous. They provide smart-sensing connectivity and informatics in a low-friction product to ensure integrity of shipments to consumers. Their IoT device takes the utility of a data logger and supercharges it with internet-connected GPS and data tracking that includes real-time Condition, Location, and Identity (CLI) information.

Because data is stored in the cloud, it removes the need for human intervention, and how often data is recorded is configurable from once a day to once an hour. Beyond shipping perishable and fragile assets, remote condition monitoring can be used to track the location and condition of many things. This includes remote assets like wind turbines, critical machinery like wildfire response equipment, chemical tank storage, and more. The amount of information that can be tracked requires that the device be capable of hosting a suite of sensors:

• Temperature & humidity (pharmaceuticals)
• Breakage monitoring (microscopes)
• Vibration (chemicals)
• Impact and frost (remote assets)

Lightweight Connectivity with Blues Wireless

When building an IoT device that relies on staying powered and unmanaged over a duration of months, battery life becomes mission critical. Velvetwire was trying to solve that challenge when they discovered Blues Wireless. They were faced with finding or building an affordable connectivity solution with global coverage and one that could collect and ship myriad sensor data over several months without draining the battery.

The Blues Wireless Notecard was designed for real world applications, and as such it provides extremely lightweight and intermittent connectivity. This enables the Notecard to have a typical idle current consumption of ~8uA at 3.3V, while still supporting active communication. Velvetwire leveraged Blues Wireless as an extension of their development team, working side by side to make product improvements and accelerate their time to market.

“The technical team at Blues has been really helpful to us. Together we’ve discovered enhancements and features that make the Notecard better and make our product better along the way.” – Eric Bodnar, Founder & CEO Velvetwire

Read the Velvetwire Customer Story

Vaccine cold chain monitoring is just one of the critical global issues Velvetwire’s technology is addressing. Their IoT condition monitoring solution is useful for monitoring valuable assets in motion or in remote locations. To read Velvetwire’s full customer story, please head to the Customer Stories section at Blues.io.

The post Velvetwire: Monitoring the Vaccine Cold Chain with the IoT appeared first on Blues.

Life in a Tropical Dystopia

Life’s not a beach for many Caribbean residents. The reality is that almost 34% of the population lives in poverty, half of the population has health care coverage through Medicaid or Medicare, and up to half of that group live with chronic disease. In some areas, hospitals only have 10 to 12 beds, and even in urban centers patients don’t receive regular monitoring and care. Chronic disease patients often end up in the emergency room for preventable issues. A trip to the ER costs thousands of dollars and every person that doesn’t need to be there takes away resources from patients who actually need emergency care.

Telehealth can help solve some of the challenges for chronic disease patients, but that requires continuous power, reliable internet access and the technical skills to use a smartphone or computer. Those things are luxuries for many underserved communities of the Caribbean – and also on islands that get hit by lots of hurricanes. Evexia Telehealth knows that, and that’s why they developed the Gateway.

A Very Fancy Box

So, what is the Gateway? If you guessed magical portal, you’re almost right. It’s a box. The Gateway is a remote patient monitoring device, and it’s simple by design. Patients don’t need to know how to do anything technical (except plug it in), and it communicates with normal medical equipment like blood pressure cuffs, oximeters, blood glucose meters, and more.

The device is built using the Blues Wireless Notecard. A complete software stack, the Notecard is a single, high-level programming interface that makes it easy for Evexia Telehealth to pinpoint technical issues. This allows them to focus on medical data rather than troubleshooting and reduces costs so the Gateway is more attainable for patients and providers.

Connectivity was a big question mark in remote areas of the Caribbean. The team at Evexia Telehealth field tested the Notecard by driving around Puerto Rico for 6 months to ensure coverage and reliability of the Notecard to pick up a signal (best job ever). Coverage was consistent, which meant even patients in the most underserved areas could use their product.

Meaningful Engagement

Better health compliance is proven to reduce treatment costs. Evexia Telehealth developed the Gateway as a bidirectional device to increase patient engagement. Data transmits from patient equipment to the cloud, where a provider can monitor the patient’s health trends and potentially take action. They assign healthcare managers to make care recommendations, and the portal can call, set up a video consultation, or escalate it to an in-person visit.

To keep patients engaged and compliant with their treatment plan, the Gateway sends audio communications from provider to patient. Patients might receive a reminder to take their medication or a greeting saying, “Hey, Mr. Smith, how are you feeling today?”. It supports English, French and Spanish, and additional languages can be added. They can also change the language remotely for multilingual households.

“Blues Wireless is a complete software stack for moving IoT sensor data over cellular networks, and this results in better health outcomes for traditionally underserved patients.” – Francois Koutchouk, CTO of Evexia Telehealth

Read the Full Story

There is so much potential in cellular IoT, and we love to see it being used to serve our most vulnerable populations. Bidirectional remote patient monitoring positively impacts underserved patients and the entire healthcare system. Read Evexia Telehealth’s customer story to learn how Blues Wireless helps improve treatment outcomes for chronic disease patients in the Caribbean.

The post Evexia Telehealth Offers Hope For The Caribbean Population Who Disproportionately Live With Chronic Diseases appeared first on Blues.

Agilix Health Empowers Cancer Patients With Real-Time Health Tracking Through Blues Wireless

“With 24/7 health monitoring, the system has to be reliable. Blues Wireless is a key component enabling us to bring high quality care to cancer patients in their own home” – Rakshit Sharma, CEO of Agilix Health

Overview

We’ve likely all been touched by cancer in our lifetime. This year, almost 2 million new cancer cases will be diagnosed and over 600,000 cancer deaths will occur in the United States alone. Despite how pervasive this disease is, cancer patients have traditionally been beholden to a reactive care model, burdened with monitoring and self-reporting symptoms and side effects while undergoing outpatient treatment. Powered by Blues Wireless, Agilix Health is working to redefine the model and deliver an improved quality of care for cancer patients through remote health monitoring systems. Agilix Founder and CEO Rakshit Sharma tells us why and how they came up with this technology.

The Cost Of A Reactive Care Model

With outpatient cancer treatment, chemotherapy is administered in clinics or hospital oncology wards. The infusion is a chemical cocktail meant to destroy cancer cells, but also toxic and damaging to healthy cells. Patients are then sent home, where they begin to experience the side effects of treatment without healthcare provider oversight.

Some of the most common side effects experienced are nausea, fatigue and diarrhea, which can snowball into more severe issues. This usually turns into the need for emergency care, with close to 60% of patients visiting the emergency department at least once within 6 months of diagnosis. But, more than 50% of those visits are avoidable by proactive care management and monitoring.

When patients visit the emergency department, they often get admitted or they disrupt treatment. Delaying treatment time decreases the chance of survival, as the cancer continues to grow. Treatment must then be restarted later at higher doses. And with an $8,000 average cost for an emergency room visit, this also contributes to higher costs for the patient, the hospital, and the payer.

Exposing Gaps In Care

The pandemic has accelerated innovation and adoption of digital health technologies. Hospitals were attempting to divert as much traffic as possible from emergency departments, while members of the community in need of care avoided visits out of concern for potential COVID-19 exposure. This is particularly true for cancer patients who are at higher risk of infections. This exposed major gaps in our current system, including the costs of reactive care models. Out of necessity, we discovered that both routine and specialized care can be decentralized and extend outside of healthcare facilities.

“One thing that the pandemic taught us is that patient care can extend beyond the four walls of a hospital.” – Rakshit Sharma, Founder & CEO of Agilix Health

For cancer patients, real time measures such as grip strength and lean body mass are prognostic indicators of the need for interventional care. Nutrition is a vital component of preventative care, with mortality rate reaching 90% with a 5% drop in weight. In an outpatient setting, you’re only monitoring these indicators during scheduled appointments, which leaves a lot of time for the patient’s health to degrade.

How Agilix Health Is Empowering Patients

Agilix recognized the need to support patients between medical appointments through nutrition support and remote monitoring. Their platform looks at the holistic health of patients on an ongoing basis, picking up on early signals of distress that would either result in emergency department visits or disruption of treatment. With the help of the team at Blues Wireless, Agilix Health prototyped a digital grip strength meter in six weeks. The digital meter translates a patient’s health information to the cloud for analysis, empowering patients and providers with real-time data.

When considering solutions, security and ease of use for patients, ability to develop a robust product, and long-term reliability were the biggest factors for Agilix. They knew that cellular was better than WiFi for patients and found there was no competition with the embedded cellular model from Blues Wireless. Blues Wireless Notecard helps bring quality care to patients in the comfort of their homes. With 10 years of connectivity and 500 MB of data to transmit data securely, this allows Agilix to continue innovating.

“Blues Wireless’ embedded data plan helped us reduce our price to go to market and ultimately have a wider impact on patients who need it.” – Rakshit Sharma, Founder and CEO, Agilix Health

Quality and accessibility were the other major considerations for Agilix. If this was going to work, it needed to be scalable and repeatable. Working with Blues Wireless allowed them to drastically reduce costs, getting this technology into the hands of patients who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to afford it.

Predicted Results

In addition to improved health outcomes for the patients, Agilix’s goal is to drastically reduce financial burdens for the entire healthcare system. “If we can reduce ER visits by 50%, this will lead to tremendous cost savings for the hospital, for the payer and for the patient,” said Rakshit.

Payers have mandated that hospitals incorporate quality metrics for Oncology, and readmissions negatively impact reporting. This puts hospitals at risk of being penalized with a poor reputation among consumers and reducing the amount of funding they receive from Medicare.

Agilix’s vision is to provide ongoing objective and subjective patient monitoring, handing control back to the patient and provider by giving them access to the information necessary to make informed decisions about their health. They aim to replace the reactive care model with an adaptive care model, reducing the burden to patients and the system.

How To Learn More

Powered by Blues Wireless technology, Agilix Health empowers cancer patients, making them equal participants in their treatment by virtue of the data transmitted from high quality monitoring devices for assessment. Agilix Health remote monitoring uses the Blues Wireless Notecard, for zero-configuration cellular connectivity, available now in over 130 countries. Remote monitoring devices will bring objectivity to cancer management, lowering costs and improving treatment outcomes without cancer patients having to leave their homes.

Stay up to date with the latest breakthroughs in Wireless IoT technology and applications. Visit us at Blues.io, or subscribe to our newsletter.

The post Agilix Health Empowers Cancer Patients With Real-Time Health Tracking With Cellular IoT appeared first on Blues.