One of the most exciting promises of IoT technology is what it can do to prevent loss or theft of valuable assets and prevent costly interruptions in the supply chain. The potential of this is enormous and can amount to many billions of dollars per year across many industries. IoT trackers are being used to locate everything from personal assets like luggage, wallets, bikes, motorcycles, and automobiles, to industrial pallets, fleets, farm animals, and shipping containers.
IoT tracking technology has advanced rapidly and today has overcome previous cost and power limitations, expanding the addressable market significantly. By combining the reliability of cellular with the precise location technology of GNSS (global navigation satellite system), today’s solutions are making it possible to track many types of assets accurately, ubiquitously, and affordably, where it was not possible before. According to market analysts, asset tracking is one of the most important benefits of IoT, and the rapidly growing demand for smart IoT tracking solutions, which is predicted to reach $60 billion by 2027[1], demonstrates this.
Sequans has brought an ideal tracking solution to market in its Monarch 2 GM02SP cellular IoT module, which delivers the ultra-reliable and everywhere available LTE-M/NB-IoT connectivity of Sequans Monarch platform combined with Nestwave’s GNSS positioning solution for a highly cost-effective, yet highly accurate solution without an external GNSS chip[2] . Monarch 2 GM02SP is ideal for those assets that need periodic, accurate tracking.
How it works
Monarch 2-based GNSS solution works by extracting timing and distance information from satellites and then processing this information to determine an asset’s exact location. The solution enables a very short time-to-first-fix, thereby reducing power consumption, but without compromising sensitivity or accuracy. With Monarch 2 and Nestwave GNSS, IoT tracking has been made simple and efficient, bringing the value of intelligent asset tracking to a much wider range of use cases.
The first customers to adopt Monarch 2 GM02SP for IoT trackers include Cosmo Connected, a leader in urban commuter solutions, Invoxia, maker of cellular GPS trackers for people and automobiles, and Samea, builder of an extremely thin and efficient reference design called ThinTrack™.
Samea ThinTrack Reference Design Now Available
Samea[3] developed ThinTrack™, an IoT tracker reference design that integrates Sequans Monarch 2 connectivity with an antenna, battery, and SIM, into a tiny and thin tracking device, measuring just 82 x 35 x 3 mm and weighing only 15 grams. ThinTrack has multi-year battery life and is ideal for slipping into wallets, packing envelopes, packages, luggage, providing a powerful tracking solution for many types of assets where accurate positioning would not previously have been practical.
Samea ThinTrack™
For more information on Monarch 2 GM02SP, click here.
