Orange Business Services, Wirepas team for IoT smart tracking

The importance of the internet of things (IoT) in industrial applications has grown a lot over the last 12 months, with smart tracking one of the key fundamental technologies for IoT service suppliers. Aiming to boost capability in this regard, Orange Business Services has announced a partnership with Finnish IoT technology firm Wirepas.

Wirepas says it is on a mission to change enterprise IoT and its new 5G standard means that for the first time, any business of any size will finally be able to digitise with reliable and affordable 5G connectivity. Its aim is to make “failure-free connectivity” accessible to any enterprise of any size, producing connectivity software enabling decentralised, scalable, high-density and long-range network applications.

Its technology is designed to let enterprise set up and manage its own network autonomously without operators or separate network infrastructure. It is also a contributor to the first non-cellular 5G standard, purpose-built for massive IoT and using a free global spectrum.

After announcing its flagship product and new standard in May, in September 2021 Wirepas gained an injection of funds to accelerate the development of what it claims is the world’s first purpose-built, non-cellular 5G technology.

Wirepas also believes that in the partnership, Orange Business Services will benefit from the large ecosystem that meets the diverse demands for hardware, from the most basic to the most specific. Thanks to the large selection, said Wirepas, integrating technology makes the devices not only traceable but also capable of inter-communication.

The technology is also based on industrial gateways, allowing interoperability between an on-premise Wirepas network and any type of server or cloud. The Wirepas Massive software brick can be embedded in a BLE Nordic semiconductor or Silicon Labs chipset.

The collaboration will focus on large-scale indoor asset tracking, and Wirepas Massive will set out to enrich Orange Business Services smart tracking by making it available to a variety of industries, such as smart buildings, healthcare, construction and manufacturing, but also for cases such as museums for the security of art works.

The Orange Business Services smart tracking offer uses Wirepas Massive, a mesh technology-based scalable connectivity software for massive IoT. Wirepas Massive, designed for large and high-density networks, allows users deploy a network without scale and without any infrastructure or cables. Installation times are said to be as short as a day and do not interrupt on-site activities.

In addition, an application by Orange, when used in software-as-a-service (SaaS) mode, will enable viewing the tracking of objects on a base map dedicated to indoor use. The detection of entry and exit of assets from a dedicated area, among other things, triggers an email or an alert from the application.

Wirepas believes it can enable Orange Business Services customers to identify and locate business assets anywhere, at any time, as well as carry out an inventory of up to 5,000 devices per pallet, with “perfect accuracy”, in a minute. One key IoT customer of Orange is Safran Aircraft Engines, which is deploying smart tracking IoT technology from Orange Business Services to accelerate the digital transformation of its industrial processes and optimise the tracking and management of its tools in large-scale production areas.