We make this point often: we’re a tech company serving agriculture*

*(horitculture, floriculture, vertical farming, arable farming, processing, cold storage, transport, retail)

Our product strategy is in many ways radically simple: make what customers tell us they want and need. This process never stops. If you’ve been with us for a bit, you may recall the release of new calculations in the Pointed Microclimate Sensor, heatmap animations, and alerts-in-charts (all customer-driven.) From hardware to connectivity to the platform, growers have shaped 30MHz tech.

We didn’t start off specifically in agritech, but it was agriculture that understood us, saw our value, worked with us and brought us to where we are. 160+ customers, five continents, and constant room for growth and evolution. Every release, and the development running up to it, is an opportunity to better understand our customers, and the sector that’s embraced us.

So what have we learned?

Well, a lot of things. One of the most notable being just how collaborative agriculture really is. (Perhaps that’s one of the reasons this sector has been such a good fit for us. It’s all about collaboration. And with our tech roots, so are we).

Farm to fork, agriculture is evidence-based and data driven, making decisions together with a whole range of stakeholders, and experimenting with and testing new methods in an ongoing conversation. From consultants, to growers, irrigation specialists to cold store operators, getting crops from seeds to customers involves continuous communication. And while the importance of “being in the greenhouse” won’t be automated away anytime soon, that dialogue is increasingly virtual and remote, between individuals in different parts of the world.

Here’s what customers are saying:

“I can trust the information from anywhere in the world on my iPhone. Sometimes I cannot sleep and I will check my phone to make sure that my plants are doing okay. I feel more confident in my decisions and I am already saving money everyday through the usage of the 30MHz solution.”– E.K. Tan, Director of Wengfong Nurseries

“Not only are we capturing metrics we previously couldn’t, on a continuous basis, I can keep an eye on the plants’ response remotely, wherever I am. I could monitor Newey Roundstone’s plants while in France last week. I knew the weather was hot, so I could just check the dashboard and see how the plants responded. It works fantastically.”   -Chris Need, Horticultural Consultant

We’re constantly working to make it easier for teams to make the most of their crop-level data. Not only are we making it simple and intuitive to compare and act on data from various sources in a single platform, we’re augmenting the ability to explore, discuss and act on that data— together, from anywhere.

You might notice us looking a little different…

The summer’s been good to us. If you launch ZENSIE, you’ll see a different user interface. We’ve made changes to streamline interaction with your data, and your colleagues whether you’re on a desktop, tablet or smartphone, and whether your colleagues are within your organisation or outside of it.

Here’s what we’ve added, and why:

Introducing: groups

You’ve been telling us just how collaborative caring for your crops is, and we’ve been listening. Groups are a new way to work together on specific projects monitoring and responding to crops’ needs. Simply click to ‘add a group’, name it, invite users and set their permissions. Collaborate with colleagues within your company or organisation, and easily add external collaborators.

Add sensors to groups

From the sensors page, you can easily select with sensors are part of your group, thus determining which live data you’ll collaborate on.

Set permissions

Set permissions when inviting members to join groups, or adjust permissions at any time.
Followers can view data and comments, without contributing. Editors can add sensors to the group, create widgets and dashboards and add comments, with no administrative role. Alongside all other capabilities, owners can control roles within the group, control the group name, add new members, and choose to delete groups.

Comments? That’s right, that brings us to…

Introducing: comments

We’ve made your agri-data more interactive, with the ability to add comments on chart values at any moment in time. As you might recall, any widget, whether it’s a single value, a heatmap or image can be viewed as an interactive chart with a single click. Once in the chart, all chart-widget capabilities apply, including the ability to add more sensors, and view different time-periods.

To add a comment, hover over your chart. Click on where you’d like to add a comment. If there are multiple sensor data points on that spot in the chart, you’ll see a drop down menu. Select the sensor you want to comment on, and add your notes. You’ll see all comments below the chart, with the option to reply to existing notes.

Dashboard tabs are on your left

To make going between dashboard tabs easier, we’ve moved them from the top of your screen to your left for clearer navigation on any device. Create and share dashboards here.

Add widgets on the top right

Remember the “add widgets” button on your bottom right? We’ve moved it to the top for mobile-friendliness.

Share dashboards on the top right

As you know, we’ve made dashboards shareable. Simply click share, fill out an email address, and select permissions to share your charts and visualisations— now on the top right for easier mobile access.

Improved search

Search used to be just for finding sensors. No longer— use the search menu (on your upper right) to find dashboards quickly and easily.

This is just the beginning

We’ll be releasing more updates to the platform so, as they say, watch this space.

In the meantime, if you’ve got questions, concerns, or ideas to share, get in touch!