It’s hard out there for farmers. Growing consistent, high-yielding crops in environments we can’t fully control is no easy task. But as we’ve seen from our customers, juggling and responding to multiple ever-changing variables, across locations, while maximizing productivity and sustainably driving profits is in many cases a data challenge. When environmental factors can determine the success of your business, reliable, consistent real-time information on the environment becomes non-negotiable. Wireless sensors are the easiest and most versatile technology to capture this data and turn it into business intelligence that can be acted upon. Setting up a sensor solution doesn’t need to be complicated. Start with the low-hanging fruit. Tackle your most immediate measurement needs, and expand from there.

Data is a farmer’s greatest asset

Agriculture is a precise science. From determining the ideal mix of nutrition and water needed to deliver the best tasting pepper to managing the sun exposure of tomatoes before they burn or optimizing soil moisture or managing temperature and humidity conditions inside a greenhouse— in agribusiness, accuracy and precision map directly back to profitability. But how does data collection turn into tactical and strategic advantages for farmers?

Translating agribusiness into metrics

Our customers tell us that the secret to their success in leveraging sensor technology is recognizing that their business processes can be expressed in measurements— or responses to those measurements. The 30MHz Sensor Toolkit is an end to end IoT solution: well placed (and moveable) wireless sensors monitor environmental factors (the metric depends on the sensor) and generate real-time alerts, alongside reports and analytics, when certain rules are met. Whether you’re monitoring the surface temperature of crops, counting objects on a conveyor belt or tracking the temperature and humidity in a greenhouse, the right sensor solution can speed up response time and provide critical information for decision making.

For example, IF: surface temperature of a pepper crosses X Degrees, THEN: send a notification

Big data possibilities for farms of any size

Even just a few well-placed sensors can drive innovation and profits. We’ve built the 30MHz Sensor Toolkit with the belief that the benefits of cutting edge technology shouldn’t be exclusive to the biggest organizations. That why we’ve made it easy to mix and match sensors and add new ones at your own pace. Customers can start seeing the benefits of sensor data and real-time alerts on their decision making straight away, and add more sensors to their network as needed.

It’s your toolbox to customize and grow

To guarantee that we serve their needs, we’ve made sure to put our customers at the very center of our product development process. We’ve worked with Dutch pepper farm Moors to develop a flexible infrared temperature sensor to optimize growth and prevent burning, developed a conveyor belt counting sensor to help Pop Vriend Seeds improve its processing, and have incorporated the insights and feedback from customers including Iribov Labs, Jan de Wit & Sons and Proeftuin Zwaagdijk in developing our temperature-humidity sensor.

Keeping it simple

We’ve built our product to make sensor technology to be as practical and usable for our customers as possible. This means addressing the three biggest obstacles to IoT adoption:

Complex deployments
You shouldn’t need an IT team and consultants to start tracking your greenhouse. Set up your sensors out of the box in moments, connect to wifi and start measuring.

Complicated dashboards
We know that the biggest value of information comes when it can be shared and used across the organization. It’s why we designed our dashboards with simplicity and accessibility as priorities. You control how your dashboards and alerts look

High risk of even trying
Making IoT work for you doesn’t have to break the bank. Start with a few sensors, see the ROI and work your way up. Invest in growing your network at the pace you’re comfortable with.