At GagaMuller Group, our weekly technology digest always tries to remain impartial and give you sound advice without trying to benefit ourselves at every corner.
However, we are a business trying to make a living so, if you don't mind, this time we are recommending one of our own (and yes, we are admitting this might be slightly biased...but hey, who cares, right? ).
SOURCETRACE
Considering the time of year and latest lockdown restrictions to land across the globe, our busy team behind the scenes have been working tirelessly for the past 8 months on an infrastructure to support the industry.
Sourcetrace isn't just an app.
It needs a network to survive: a bloodstream, veins and a heart.
It is being set up to run off a network. If we wanted to we could have built Sourcetrace on technology that works with Bluetooth, but that is shortsighted in our opinion.
Building a network
We are building an entire network around Dublin to start and are well on our way to securing the entire region of Dublin as a network, a LoRa network. It is for this reason that GagaMuller Group have acquired LoRanetworksireland as we expand our reach towards a vision of a connected smart future.
A quick google search is all you need to do to find that LoRa is what the Internet of Things (IoT) will run off in the future. It will better even with the advances of 5G and, here at GagaMuller, we are installing this right now across Dublin, TTN (The Things Network). We see a bigger picture than just Sourcetrace. We have a vision to build a fully connected eco-system for smart cities in the future.
Being an SME in this Climate
Start Ups are out there putting all on the line for a vision, a hunch. SME's across Ireland are particularly at risk with the current pandemic. So much so, GagaMuller Group, whom are an SME ourselves, are funding a campaign to help SME's during this time - Stay tuned next week to see this wonderful initiative released.
As an industry we need to change our culture in accepting start-ups and SME's more. We have had a constant battle... luckily, the quality of our work and product spoke for themselves, but we are constantly met with resistance in our industry still, which is a shame. We are fortunate that our core customers not only believe in us, but actively push us to be better, which is what keeps us going forward. While embarking on this journey of building a network have we seen first hand how generous and helpful we are as a nation and it makes us very passionate to ensure to return the favour.
This is why we are so passionate about supporting SME's around Ireland right now.
Supporting SME
We are not, and have not, stood still. We are continuously breaking down doors and disrupting for the better. We have relied on the generosity of local business owners around Dublin who have given us access to their roofs and power and, especially, of the college network such as TUD (Technological University Dublin) who have been amazing giving us a network from their rooftops.
Why put ourselves through all this?
Well, our early pricing and roll out strategy was to install the gateway hubs in each site. Therefore charging for the triangulation of 3 hubs per site which we didn't think was fair to the organisations that would purchase it. Also, when we began Beta testing on a site (With John Paul's who have also been very supportive) in Dublin before Christmas, we found that the power was constantly being disconnected, meaning that the network would be unreliable.
Instead, we have once again taken it on the chin in terms of costs to our business in search of a better future. We took on the mammoth task of just building our own network instead (we were never ones to do it the easy way!). This means that the network is much more reliable and closer in set up to your mobile network. It also means that the subscription to Sourcetrace is far cheaper to buy for our customers.
We have an amazing supply chain in Kerry and Limerick. Our devices are built using top of the range 3D printing technology, partnering with the very impressive Wazp.io.
Our devices are retailing at €96 once off payment per device to your site and you then pay a subscription fee of €22 per device per month for the sourcetrace application. There's a small cost to pay the enabling of the IoT and wearable devices on your projects and providing an invisible layer of safety far more effective than the standard PPE on your workforce.
Always innovating & improving
We are now about to enter another partnership with Tyndall Institute, whom have been amazingly supportive to date, in which we aim to bring this technology to the next level.
We are already looking at hardware devices for tracking deliveries, plant and equipment on site as well as improving internal accuracy using sensor network.
We are always open to innovative customers getting involved and trialing our technology on their projects. We are looking for only a select few initially, as we really want this to work, before releasing to the general public, in a similar way to how we developed PlanLoader....where we have finally rolled out our first customer this month, almost 15 months later than we had expected, we really are our biggest critics.
Those of you keen to hear more about PlanLoader read all about it here. It has been an amazing journey and we are very proud to finally stand over this application.