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Fire extinguishers - the World of Things

  The first fire extinguisher model sounds more dangerous than the fire: a cask that held liquid and a pewter gunpowder chamber connected to fuses. At the first flicker of flame, the alert 18th-century homeowner lit the fuses to ignite the gunpowder, which exploded, scattering the liquid retardant. Today, U.S. homeowners douse 13 million fires every year with extinguishers that use compressed air to spray foam, mono-ammonium phosphate or sodium bicarbonate. (via Popular Mechanics ) Important dates: 1723 (first fire extinguisher is invented); November 2017 (launching of PowaINFRA - an awesome Internet of Things).  This post forms part of the series of posts around 1001 Awesome things that have shaped our world. As we move to a more connected world our vision is to deliver 1001 Awesome IoT sensors.  Now that you know about an awesome thing in the world, discover our awesome world of things ... Visit the website of DS or email info@ds.co.za to discover awesome #IoT solution
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Improving the cost effectiveness of operating ATMs

When an ATM fails in is most likely to be one of the following causations: the utility power such as that supplied by the municipality or Eskom has failed; the ATM hardware has failed; and the network connectivity to the ATM has failed. In all cases a network management tool does not provide causation. The loss of connectivity to the ATM and the ATM infrastructure does not provide any measure of realtime diagnosis. Should power be restored the network management tool can potentially determine whether ther has been a power outage by referencing the system clock on the network equipment and determining if it has been reset. Some network equipment have a "last gasp" functionality, but in most deployment cases this does not function. The equipment failure is combined upstream with a service provider failure and the alerts are not received. The DS solution is to use a Powalert. The Powalert is an Internet of Things sensor that interoperates
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On board PowaINFRA gateway deployment

DS has an on board version of the PowaINFRA gateway that can be deployed on a vehicle. The gateway is powered by the 12V of the vehicle and typically installed under the dash. Additionally, the gateway has an extra sensor and metric ability of using Geo-location. The on board PowaINFRA gateway has the same capabilities as the standard PowaINFRA gateway and is compatible with the sensors in the PowaINFRA range. Other vehicle tracking systems are typically wired and thus rely on the sensors to be connected to contacts on the main unit. No only is this a more difficult installation but it limits the number of sensors installed in a vehicle as it is not cost effective. Most vehicle installation of refrigerated trucks only have one temperature probe installed, either on the output or return vents of the cooling units. This is typically located at the front of the refrigeration trailer and the cooling varies within the trailer. Thus it is likely that the load can ex
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Monitoring of perishable goods in a retail environment

Temperature control and monitoring is the one of the most significant tools in the handling of perishable goods. Maintenance of a high relative humidity, and modification of the atmospheric composition can have a strong add-on effect, but is no substitute for good temperature control. The DS solution allows the constant and online monitoring of temperature and humidity and provides extensive reporting capabilities for compliance and auditability. For this type of produce to be sold it has to be available in high grade and quality condition. This requires that the storage conditions be optimal. These conditions revolve not only around temperatures and humidity but additionally, room access control. It is important monitor conditions consistently and accurately and not only — not just to react when potential damage already has been done. The ultimate goal is to maintain a state of health as close as possible to 100 percent throughout the storage and distribution p
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PowaINFRA in retail commercial deployments

Retail shops often provide an on-premise alarm system that consists of a panel and a number of sensors such as passive infra-red presence sensors.   The panel is typically connected to a security response company that provides services should there be an activation during a period when the panel is armed.   The solution is problematic when there is a failure to arm or when the person designated to arm/disarm bypasses the system.    In South Africa a significant number of incidents of theft are attributed to the retail shop management or the security companies providing services. As an additional measure, shops have also deployed surveillance systems as a secondary means of validation.   An example of surveillance is often visible as a deterrent at ATMs.   Although a workable solution, there are disadvantages such as large bandwidth being required to access the technology.   Of the course the problem is the reactiveness of the response as opposed to being pro-active. DS
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PowaINFRA in telecommunications

IoT is the incremental next step into the optimised use of technology that was made prevalent by smart phone technology. The cost efficiencies of smart phone technologies have resulted in the deployment of a number of other generic devices that use low powered network connections as an alternative. These are the class of devices known as IoT, the Internet of Things, which were previously not networked. The PowaINFRA range is a true IoT solution.   Powalert is a product in the PowerINFRA range. This solution expands the digital world to buildings and infrastructure that were previously mostly accessed by requiring physical connections. The Powalert sensor, using IoT technology, provides the ability to determine power related failures within telecommunications. A last mile provider typically has multiple customers using leased lines. When an outage occurs at the customer premises, the immediate cause is typically related to either network or power. However, there is cur
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