SigFox Launches Spot’it Low Cost GPS-Free IoT Geolocation Service

Asset tracking was traditionally done using a combination of cellular and GPS technology, and LPWAN standards like LoRa & Sigfox promised to lower the cost of communication and hardware while still relying on GPS technology, but Sigfox has just announced Spot’it geolocation service, which will get rid of GPS all together, and instead use radio signal strength analysis and deep learning techniques in order to provide location information both outdoors and indoors.

Key benefits listed by the company include:

• Lowest-cost IoT location service – Spot’it does not require any additional hardware or software upgrades, and the device does not have to transmit more messages, meaning there is no impact on the solution operating cost for customers.

• Low energy – Spot’it does not rely on energy intensive GPS technology, nor require additional processing or any more energy than what Sigfox-enabled devices already consume.

• Enabled through a planetary network – Spot’it is embedded in Sigfox’s global network footprint and represents the first global IoT geolocation offer. This allows the simplification of global supply chain management: once a device is registered into the Sigfox Cloud, the geolocation service is available in all territories where the network is present.

• Unlike traditional GPS-tracking, Sigfox Spot’it works both indoors and outdoors.

For this to work, you’ll need to be covered by Sigfox’s network in one of the 31 countries currently covered, so coverage is not exactly “global” yet. The service does not need any new hardware, and you can use existing Sigfox modules, which you can get for as low as $2 (in quantities), and track them at low cost. Sigfox has not provided that much details on how they are doing it, but they still explained Spot’it was the first big data based Sigfox server, which relies on their Cloud service analyzing signal strength to determine the location.

So there are still unanswered questions, such as accuracy of the system, and how much the company charges for the geolocation service on top of the network access fee.

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