Episode 2
Dean Marsh - Using LoRaWAN to Fight Cold & Crime in the UK
🔍 Episode Overview
In this episode, we sit down with Dean Marsh, a veteran in the world of LoRaWAN-powered IoT deployments across the UK. From saving lives in rural Welsh housing to uncovering criminal activity through smart sensors, Dean shares how simple, scalable IoT solutions can drive massive impact—not just efficiency. Whether it's reducing costs, slashing CO₂ emissions, or catching drug gangs, this one’s about using LoRaWAN where it truly matters.
🧠What You’ll Learn
- How a LoRaWAN sensor helped save an elderly man suffering from hypothermia​
- Why LoRaWAN is ideal for scaling low-cost, battery-powered sensors in social housing, utilities, and construction​
- The surprising story of how footfall sensors exposed a drug gang operating out of a residential building​
- Why changing processes, not just tech, is key to successful IoT adoption​
- How partnerships (like UK Connect + Daizy) are simplifying enterprise-scale IoT rollouts​
🛠️ Technologies & Use Cases Discussed
- Social Housing: LoRaWAN for detecting mold risk, fuel poverty, emergency lighting compliance, and smoke alarm automation.
- Utilities: Millions of LoRaWAN-connected water meters transmitting hourly readings.
- Construction Sites: Real-time compliance and safety monitoring with LoRaWAN.
- Optimized Retrofit Projects: Measuring thermal efficiency in homes using multi-sensor data.
đź’ˇ Key Takeaways
- Start with the pain points: Customers don’t care about the tech; they care about saving time, money, and carbon emissions.
- Automate compliance: Dean shows how LoRaWAN eliminates manual checks—from emergency lights to Legionella risk assessments.
- It’s all about process change: Successful IoT projects rewrite outdated workflows—not just add dashboards.
đź”— Resources & Mentions
- UK Connect
- Daizy Platform — Used for large-scale IoT provisioning and management.
- MeteoScientific Console — Try LoRaWAN with 400 free data credits.
🙌 Special Thanks
This episode is brought to you by the IoT Working Group at the Helium Foundation.
đź’˛ Support the show!
Transcript
Welcome to
2
:the business of LoRaWAN,
where we dive into this long range,
3
:low power, wide area network
and its impact on your bottom line,
4
:the latest sensors and proven real world
solutions.
5
:I'm your host, Nik Hawks.
6
:Since 2020,
when I stumbled into LoRaWAN via helium
7
:while hunting for a lost paraglider,
I've helped thousands understand
8
:how it works and how to use it,
and I'm psyched to do the same for you.
9
:I've installed everything
from soil sensors
10
:to weather stations to retail foot
traffic counters.
11
:Coming to the conclusion
that LoRaWAN is rad,
12
:so I built the only show on the internet
fully dedicated to unlocking its potential
13
:for your business.
14
:Let's dig in
15
:today on the business of LoRaWAN.
16
:We're diving into the world of real world,
high impact IoT with someone
17
:who's been at the forefront of deploying
smart sensor
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:networks in places
that actually need them,
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:not just to automate toasters,
but to save lives and disrupt crime.
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:My guest today is Dean Marsh, currently
IoT specialist at UK
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:connect, a company building
secure connectivity and IoT infrastructure
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:across the UK from construction
sites to social housing.
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:Dean's career is a fascinating journey
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:through the trenches
of public sector innovation.
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:He started out in it
at a housing association in rural Wales,
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:where he helped
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:deploy one of the earliest LoRaWAN
based monitoring systems in the UK
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:and in social housing
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:that included battery powered sensors
tracking things like humidity
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:and temperature to flag issues
like mold or dangerously cold homes.
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:From there, he moved to connection,
where he helped roll out
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:what's likely the densest LoRaWAN network
in the UK, connecting millions of smart
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:utility devices across
cities and rural areas.
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:Now UK connect, he's bringing
those same capabilities to construction,
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:tackling health, safety and compliance
through scalable, real time IoT.
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:In this conversation, Deane shares
how a simple temperature sensor helped
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:save an elderly man's life
and how anonymous people counter data
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:led to uncovering a pattern of drug gang
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:activity stories that remind us
just how powerful these systems
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:can be when placed in the right hands,
with the right intent.
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:This one is about scale, impact,
and unexpected insight.
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:Let's get into it.
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:Dean,
thanks so much for coming on the show. Hi.
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:Thank you Nik, great to meet you.
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:Yeah, I'm psyched to have you on.
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:Let's start the journey.
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:You've been in LoRaWAN as long as anyone.
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:Almost anyone I've met for sure is
I think it was back in:
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:You started using it?
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:Maybe earlier.
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:What was it about it that caught
you and got you really interested?
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:Yeah. That's right, almost ten years now.
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:So back in 2016, 2017, I was working with
in social housing in the UK.
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:I spent most of my career
within the sort of IT sector.
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:So at the Housing Association in Wales
we are quite a unique sort of
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:problem really.
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:So we had roughly 5000 properties
scattered
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:all across Wales,
so that there's a lot of traveling there.
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:That, that the sort of staff
they found out about problems before
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:it was too late. So it's reactive.
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:So for example, a property be abandoned
or a leak in there.
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:And by the time it was sort of notified
and they found out
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:a lot of damage in place.
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:And we also used to talk, you know,
what if what if we could get data
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:from these assets and turn the
in the reactive into proactive.
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:And about that time we were quite lucky.
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:We saw LoRaWAN
sort of coming on the scene in Europe.
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:And what's all this about?
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:We talked about it previously
where we'd have to sort of hardwire
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:the properties and put cabling
and that that wouldn't work.
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:We couldn't use the tenant
sort of internet.
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:So when we saw this new technology
emerge, LoRaWAN.
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:So and we just went ahead and bought
a gateway and a load of sensors,
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:we didn't have a clue
what we were doing at the time.
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:It was it was quite an exciting adventure.
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:So, we install the gateway
on to the headquarters in a small town.
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:Bit of a learning curve there.
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:We hired a cherry picker.
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:We did the work ourselves on top.
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:Made sure the antenna was good, and then,
that was in place.
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:So we start to roll out
these environmental sensors.
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:I think there were Alsace errors.
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:Temperature, humidity, CO2.
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:So we started to roll those out
into the properties, into the homes
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:in the area, about 100, 150 at the time.
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:And then all of a sudden we start getting
this at this data from the homes there.
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:And it was absolutely fascinating.
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:We could see
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:instantly the homes which were abandoned
and we didn't realize were abandoned,
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:fuel poverty, in the UK a lot, you know,
a lot of people are on the breadline.
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:They've not got enough money
to heat the homes where there's
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:a lot of grants available,
and we could instantly see these homes.
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:They've been below sort of,
ten degrees centigrade for a week.
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:So with that data,
we start to send the housing officers out.
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:And it kind of opened up
this whole new way of working for us.
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:And there was so much excitement
going on internally.
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:We got shortlisted
for sort of many awards.
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:And actually we had a bad winter in the UK
right about that time.
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:It was,
I think it was called beast From the East.
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:And we saw, one property in particular.
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:The at the temperature went below
zero degrees for a week.
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:So, yeah,
we sent a housing officer out there
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:and the, an elderly gentleman
who was hypothermic at the time.
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:So, yeah, we potentially
saved a life there with with the data. So.
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:So what LoRaWAN suddenly enabled us to do
was get all this data
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:from our houses
really quickly, easily to deploy.
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:We didn't need to rely on
SIM cards, the batteries,
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:because the nature of LoRaWAN is such low
power, the batteries
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:with sort of a half an hour sampling
rate can last up to sort of ten years.
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:So it just enabled us to kind of open
this whole new kind of world of work.
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:And as a couple of years gone
on, we started to roll out more sensors,
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:into homes, getting all this data
and learning from the data as well.
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:We made a big,
big kind of impression in the scene.
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:I think we were on first
in the UK to actually do that.
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:Very exciting.
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:And then we started to look at the,
the compliancy side,
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:all these sort of manual things
people were doing going out in vans.
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:In the UK you had to test emergency
lighting once a month.
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:By law.
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:You have to do the legionella
risk assessment as well, where you're
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:measuring temperature,
the taps and recording
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:that we're thinking, right, okay.
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:We we kind of got the architecture here.
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:Now can we actually automate these things.
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:And yeah, we could
so we we set about to begin with
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:automating our emergency like testing.
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:So we looked at the figures
and we were spending roughly over
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:100,000 pounds
a year on emergency lights in alone.
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:So we start to target these blocks
where they were coming up
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:for renewal of the components,
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:and we start to put in these LoRaWAN
enabled emergency lights.
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:And that enables us to do the testing
over the air, generate its own report
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:in it, literally land in the inbox
every month for the staff to, board.
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:And we realized, wow,
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:okay,
people are not going out in vans anymore.
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:That's a huge CO2 print we just saved.
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:And then we we sort of understood, okay,
part of the rent the tenants are paying,
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:there's a service charge element
that they're actually paying
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:for the emergency
like testing that got removed.
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:So it reduced the rent and these blocks,
which was which was absolutely brilliant.
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:Not so.
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:I started to find an area.
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:I'm a big problem solver.
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:I love looking at things.
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:People are doing the same for years,
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:for years and saying like, you know,
can we actually make this better?
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:And it kind of took off from me
that I got headhunted for another job.
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:Start to do more of the housing side
and take that kind of skill
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:set that on a mass deployments in the UK,
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:past two years.
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:There's a huge momentum
in the UK for LoRaWAN.
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:A lot under the radar.
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:A lot of the street lighting is LoRaWAN
enabled.
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:I'd say almost 90%
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:of water meters in the UK at LoRaWAN.
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:A lot of support
with the Welsh Government.
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:They've rolled out gateways
to all towns and villages.
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:So you've got this coverage.
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:Absolutely everywhere.
Oh that's fantastic.
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:I had no idea
it was so deep across the, across the UK.
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:So let's see 2017, you find it,
you kind of work
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:through till 2022 at the
what was mid-Wales housing.
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:And then changed to another,
another company.
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:Yes. It merged with another housing
association called Tight critical.
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:At the time it became came pocket and at
that time I'd worked on it all my life.
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:You know, I'd kind of gone from, sort
of the days of Novell Network to full.
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:I'd seen this in the IoT.
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:It just kind of really, I think my mind is
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:kind of geared for IoT
and those problems there.
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:So I found that area I actually really
enjoyed didn't feel like a job anymore.
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:Yeah.
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:The past two years
working with the majority of the water
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:utility companies in the UK, basically
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:deploying massive scale
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:LoRaWAN networks, millions of devices.
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:And for the water utility companies, it's
basically going from where
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:they're getting a handful of rates
every year to hourly rates,
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:which made a made
a huge difference, akin to tech
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:where leaks
are automatically other anomalies.
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:And that was that was very exciting,
very exciting. Now.
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:Got it.
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:Okay.
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:So the the really big savings
from the business side.
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:Like I always like
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:geeking out on the tech side
just because it's fascinating to me.
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:But it's also important for folks
who are watching this to say,
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:okay, how would I use LoRaWAN to make
or save money
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:is what I'm hearing
you're saying is over and over.
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:You were able to find
when you deployed LoRaWAN
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:sensors, you almost
you immediately had labor savings.
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:And then there was also a piece
that's built on top of that,
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:where you start to have a much clearer
picture, much more up to date
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:picture of what's actually happening,
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:and then can make better business
decisions off of that.
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:Is it those are the two main areas
that you're seeing.
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:Is kind of business
beneficial for LoRaWAN?
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:Yeah.
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:The key that the customer doesn't
really care so much about,
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:that's sort of the jargon, the buzzwords,
the connectivity.
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:You've got to go in there,
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:look at their manual processes,
look at find their pain points.
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:And I think the main battle I've come
across is actually making the customer
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:or potential customer understand
there is a problem to begin with.
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:They won't actually realize this
technology exists to automate an area.
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:So you want to look at all
their processes.
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:LoRaWAN typically
where you've got manual things going on.
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:Obviously infrequent sort
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:of some once a week or once a month.
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:But massive scale,
you know, across many locations there.
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:So it's a look at those pain points.
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:You've got to
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:understand, you've got to speak
the language of ROI to the customer.
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:They want to say, right, I'm spending,
you know, X, I'm spending 2 million pounds
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:a year with this kit going in, you know,
how quickly is it going to pay for itself?
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:And their own wants as well.
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:And it's not just
sort of reduction of cost as well.
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:You'll see a lot of CO2 reduction as well.
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:So in the UK with decarbonization, ESG,
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:a lot of a lot of the solutions
will take that box as well.
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:So that that that's
a very important to consider.
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:But you gotta you've got to understand
them pain points, get them out
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:and then work the technology around
that got it.
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:So when you're going into a new customer
or talking to a new customer,
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:do you have a series of questions that
you ask like, hey, how much is your labor?
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:What's your your highest top line expense?
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:Are there any things that you're like
over and over?
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:When I ask this question, I almost always
find a problem I can solve.
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:Yes, exactly.
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:Spot on.
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:I like to kind of try
and put myself in their shoes.
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:I'll go out to site, spend a day with them
and see what they're actually doing.
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:And then you start to kind of understand
the picture and another key area as well.
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:And I see a lot of IoT projects fail,
but not because of the solution
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:and the technology.
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:That's absolutely perfect.
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:But when you've got a business
and they've been doing
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:these processes that have been in place
for 20 or 30 years,
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:these manual processes,
they need to be almost completely erased
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:and rewritten to deal with this,
proactive approach of data coming in.
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:And I've seen a lot of failures in the UK
where they've they've just not
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:rewrote the processes
and expected it to work with IoT,
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:for example,
with your automated compliancy in housing,
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:you want to get it to a point where, okay,
all the testing has been done automatic
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:and that it's
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:fed into your existing management system
and it updates the component.
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:It takes away the admin side there, so it
completely automates the entire process.
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:And that's that's
where you get massive wins and adoption.
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:Yeah. And let's see connection.
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:Recently I think announced a partnership
or preferred partnership with Daisy.
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:And so I'm seeing
if I'm getting this right
251
:that these companies who are providing
the connectivity
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:are partnering with companies
who are providing the kind of enterprise
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:IoT, maybe visualization
and management side.
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:And that's going to be this
trend of like, hey,
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:not only should you roll these things out
and get the data in,
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:but here's how you manage the data
to make your your business better.
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:Are you seeing the same thing
or am I just missing something
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:because I'm new to the, to the industry?
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:No, that that's absolutely correct.
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:So it's so yeah, a UK connects.
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:We're thinking okay, long term
with large scale deployments.
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:We it's we need to think about.
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:Right. Okay.
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:Let's take for example
say we're doing a telegraph pole
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:monitoring solution
for either electric or fiber.
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:And we got 20,000 poles.
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:We want to, you know, fixed density okay.
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:For one you've got a you've got to build
the project into the application.
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:And Daisy is it's brilliant for there.
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:So you'd load the project in with your
20,000 poles and the GPS location there.
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:Then you'd load your sensors in.
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:It's a repository.
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:There's a mobile phone app
for doing the install.
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:So basically what happens at that point
that you push
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:the jobs out to the engineers,
they know exactly where to go.
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:They scan the sensor in that location.
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:So it takes the human element error out.
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:Because if you go to the wrong
notification
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:and trying to scan the wrong sensor,
it just doesn't like you.
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:So so Daisy is a key key area, a key
kind of component
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:in your system to ensure that you're
managing the project correctly.
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:You provision the devices.
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:You can see they're working okay.
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:And what I love about it,
it's got that flexibility
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:to integrate easily
into existing applications,
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:because you see a lot of the time
with an enterprise customer,
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:they don't want you dashboards
or applications.
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:They want to use their existing power
BI or whatever's behind the scenes,
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:and they just want to parse the data,
so it accepts it and
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:process that Daisy makes.
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:That makes that really easy to do.
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:Got it. And thank you for the correction.
That's UK connect.
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:That's not connection that yeah.
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:Doctor wood with Daisy okay.
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:Super super cool.
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:What are like the what are the biggest
problems that you see in in LoRaWAN.
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:And kind of
the business of LoRaWAN. Is it.
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:You know what are you seeing where
it's like, man, I wish we could solve this
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:biggest problems.
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:I'd say it's it's usually
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:sort of like a culture shift, really?
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:Yeah.
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:You know, it's more like,
can I explain it?
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:Sometimes it's sort of psychology.
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:People don't like change.
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:Some people don't like change.
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:I'd say that's the biggest obstacle.
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:The technology works. Works great.
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:As long as you for a massive rollout,
you do all your planning,
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:make sure that gateways
are installed to spec
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:and everything is done right there,
and you'll find this absolutely solid.
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:I'd say all night
the actual selling the product,
313
:it's it's making sure that you can
314
:speak the language of the customer
and ROI, the technology side.
315
:Yeah, it just works.
316
:Got it. Okay.
317
:So the biggest problem, and this is what
I seem to encounter over and over, is
318
:just explaining to the customer
what this unlocks for them.
319
:And it sounds like you've got
a really good, set up downwards, like,
320
:hey, this will unlock labor savings
and this will unlock new data insights
321
:that will be important for your
for your business.
322
:Okay. Yeah.
323
:Just just falling off what you said, it's
you've got to put yourself in the shoes
324
:of that customer and understand it
from their point of view.
325
:And don't go
just take out the jargon completely.
326
:Yeah.
327
:Fair enough.
328
:It's as much as I love talking about
uplinks and the rest of it as soon as I.
329
:Yeah, if I say any of that, I love that.
330
:Yeah.
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:Let's see that.
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:So some nerd stuff
I saw you're into energy harvesting.
333
:That seems like
334
:the next big thing in sensors in general,
is just getting rid of the batteries and
335
:making sure that we're using the energy
that's kind of on site, for that.
336
:Is there is that true?
337
:And is there anything else
that you're seeing that you're
338
:that's coming down the line
that you're really excited about?
339
:Yeah, that's a great point.
340
:Actually.
341
:A massive fan
342
:of the new sort of second generation
actually helps ancestors come out.
343
:So, you know, you've got
I think if you roll in I thousands
344
:of millions of devices, you've got lithium
batteries going into each.
345
:And if you get around that, with energy
harvesting, it's key.
346
:For example,
I've used a lot of the, for utility
347
:hot drop the energy
harvesting CT clamps, for example.
348
:We've got a large commercial building.
349
:You can get those in real quick.
350
:They just kick off, send the data through
and that they're brilliant.
351
:There's a number of environmental sensors
352
:as well, which do actually helps the gray
area really, really closely follow.
353
:Yeah, it's super cool. And do you have any
you mentioned one of them.
354
:You have any other preferred ones?
355
:The only one I've seen that have had
my hands is the sis.
356
:I think it's a ERS CO2 monitor.
357
:I mean,
I know there's thousands out there,
358
:I just haven't,
I haven't touched a bunch of.
359
:Is there anything where you're like,
oh this one is works really well.
360
:A French
company next lec that they're hard work on
361
:harder is absolutely,
you know, sort of Cisco.
362
:Cisco. Great.
363
:If I can if I can say that it's it's
absolutely solid.
364
:They have a new, smoke detector,
LoRaWAN base smoke detector
365
:which meets the UK regulations.
366
:So for interlink.
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:And that's another great area in the UK.
368
:You have to
for example, as a housing association,
369
:you sort of go out and manually test
every year if you got that information
370
:coming over the air from a smoke detector,
it completely transformed it.
371
:So yeah, check those guys. Okay. Friends.
372
:I mean, I would expect anything in France
to be ahead of the curve.
373
:That's where the whole thing started.
374
:So, Good.
375
:Good to hear
there's no surprise there. Let's see.
376
:As we wrap this
377
:thing
up, is there anything that you've seen
378
:from combining different pieces of data
that's been surprising to you?
379
:I know that you've done the temperature
and humidity to check for mold growth.
380
:Is there anything else like.
381
:Oh, yeah, we did this thing
382
:and I didn't understand at the beginning
how powerful it would be to
383
:to kind of stack these two pieces of data
on top of each other,
384
:but we unlock some new insights
because of it.
385
:That's a great point, actually.
386
:An area in the UK,
which is called optimize retrofit.
387
:So basically you're going end
with a, say, a property,
388
:what was built in 1930 or 40,
you're putting insulation in there.
389
:You change the heating you windows,
you improve the efficiency.
390
:So an area
that so you need to measure how much water
391
:the property's use
and how much electric gas.
392
:And then in each room
the the thermal efficiency of
393
:temperature rising
and then the heat decay there.
394
:And I think what makes it really easy now
with the sort of the way
395
:AI machine learning is exploded,
you can basically just,
396
:you know, dump that data in that
it'll do all the calculations really easy
397
:if you get out.
398
:So you've got a,
you get almost like a 3D kind of picture,
399
:but actually just
just remembered something.
400
:At the housing association, we,
we put, people characters
401
:onto the blocks of flats,
just out of curiosity, seeing what the,
402
:the kind of the data is like
with people going in and out.
403
:Yeah.
404
:And we could see this natural sine wave.
405
:So people going to work on a Monday
come home and it's just like sine
406
:wave like this on the weekend
it would die down.
407
:And there was one block in particular.
408
:All of a sudden every two weeks
the the footfall would shoot straight up
409
:and then back down again.
410
:We thought there was something wrong
with the hardware.
411
:We saw some of the kit,
but that was absolutely fine.
412
:And what, what was going on in that block?
413
:There was what we call in the UK, people
coming over, it's called county Lines.
414
:They were dealing drugs from the block
basically.
415
:So, from that data, we managed to analyze
416
:a specific set of person information
which would flag this behavior.
417
:So the gangs were coming over the border
from England, dropping
418
:all the sort of drugs off
to be distributed from the block.
419
:So, that was that was very interesting.
420
:I believe these
that data in court as well.
421
:Oh, that's red.
422
:That's cool.
423
:I'm sure that must have correlated
with when payday hits
424
:because when the money's there
that's typical.
425
:When it happens.
426
:Yeah.
427
:It was sticks in my mind that one. Yeah.
428
:We didn't expect it.
429
:Oh very cool Dean, thanks so much
for making the time and coming on.
430
:It's been fascinating
to get to talk to you.
431
:I'm super cool to talk to someone
who's been in the game for so long,
432
:and just see how you've been able to use
433
:LoRaWAN across the board for all these
different businesses. Thanks so much, man.
434
:Thanks, Nik.
435
:Brilliant. Thank you. Okay.
436
:That's it for the business of LoRaWAN.
437
:Thanks for listening.
438
:If you enjoyed the show
439
:and want to learn more,
the podcast home on the web is Mexico.
440
:That's net SBI dot show.
441
:There you'll find calculators to estimate
the impact of IoT usage on your business.
442
:Be able to make guest suggestions.
443
:If you know someone who
444
:you think should come on the show
and easily get in touch with me.
445
:If you think the show is useful
for LoRaWAN, please leave a review
446
:wherever you listen to this.
447
:Ratings
interviews really help podcast grow.
448
:Finally, an enormous
thanks to our sponsor at the IoT
449
:working Group at the Helium Foundation
for supporting the show.
450
:If you want to try one out for yourself
without asking anyone permission,
451
:you can sign up for a Meteoscientific
account at console.meteoscientific.com
452
:and get your first 400 data credits
for free.
453
:That's enough to run a sensor for
about a year if you're sensing once a day.
454
:Right on. See you on the next show.