The Value of Third-Party Data Collection in Your CO2 Monitoring System

Many activities of modern human life have altered the carbon cycle; power generating facilities, petrochemical plants, cement production plants, cars and trucks, industrial processes, and agricultural practices all produce CO2 and release it into the environment. Some of this CO2 is naturally sequestered in plants, soils, and the ocean, but to offset these increasing emissions, additional forms of carbon sequestration will be necessary. That’s where geologic CO2 sequestration, also known as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), comes into play. CCS is the process of storing carbon dioxide (CO2) in underground geologic formations. To do this, the CO2 is usually pressurized until it becomes a liquid, then it’s injected into porous rock formations in geologic basins.

CO2 sequestration is important because power plants may need to put CO2 into the earth rather than releasing it to protect the Earth’s atmosphere, but there are currently no federal environmental regulations that are specific to CCS projects or associated pipelines. However, there are many federal environmental laws and regulations, often in coordination with state regulatory agencies, that enable federal agencies to influence efforts across the CCS value chain, such as The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), and the Clean Water Act. 

In addition, The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) requires large GHG emission sources, fuel and industrial gas suppliers, and carbon dioxide and oxide injection sites in the US to report greenhouse gas (GHG) data and other relevant information, including information regarding the capture, supply, and underground injection of carbon dioxide and oxide. Regulations governing CCS provide a mechanism for facilities to monitor their activities and report the amounts of carbon dioxide they sequester to the EPA. 

Before CO2 injection, targeted reservoirs must be modeled using multiscale and multiphysics numerical simulations coupled with field observations to assess the reservoir’s ability to securely sequester CO2. It’s necessary to monitor the evolution of CO2, the reservoir, and the caprock both before and after the injection. To ensure the process has been done correctly and no CO2 is escaping into the atmosphere, a CO2 monitoring system is required. 

Using a CO2 Monitoring System in Monitoring & Verification

Monitoring 

A CO2 monitoring system is necessary throughout the lifecycle of a project to: 

• Characterize the suitability of sites before an injection project begins

• Monitor an injection site (e.g., formation pressure, plume-spread, leak detection, etc.) while the injection is in progress and during immediate post-closure operations

• Operate a site safely and effectively

• Assess possible site expansions

• Remediate problems at all stages of the life cycle

• Determine when a site should move from post-closure to long-term stewardship

• Monitor during long-term stewardship

So, how does monitoring & verification (M&V) work? It starts with sensor monitoring, as this must occur before CO2 sequester sites are set up to understand the baseline emissions of the earth. Then, each site’s CO2 levels will need to be monitored again after initial setup to make sure the CO2 is successfully being sequestered. By subtracting the baseline, you ensure there’s no false measurement of CO2. 

While CO2 monitoring is undoubtedly important, it isn’t without its challenges. Traditionally, monitoring would require a technician to visit each of the sites and record the CO2 reading, requiring regular travel to and from the location, and a reliance on manual readings that suffer from inconsistencies (human error, different recording methodologies, etc.). Luckily, there is a simple solution. Using a remote CO2 monitoring system saves time and money on travel, eliminates human error, and increases the number of readings you can take each week, improving the overall dataset. 

Data Retention

When you rely on a CO2 monitoring system, there is a lot of value in using a third party. CCS projects are increasing in frequency and global significance as regulatory entities, investors, and shareholders further drive the demand for decarbonization and sustainability, but since relatively few CCS projects have been completed to date, owner companies don’t have access to reliable cost estimates and performance data necessary to inform decision-making. 

There is a need for raw, unmodified data, both for your own future CCS projects and for the industry as a whole – CCS project data collected directly from project teams and participating companies is incredibly valuable. The ability to retain the original dataset allows you to utilize data for modeling on numerous occasions, normalizing it for time, location, and currency differences to enable robust analysis. That’s why when you use EDG to collect site data, you’ll always be able to access the raw, unmodified sensor data – if there’s ever a question about the original data, you’ll have all of the information you need to answer it. 

Combine Disparate Data Sources

Proper monitoring requires gathering data for many different sensors positioned around the site, but collecting and aggregating data from these sensors can be difficult if they aren’t all from the same manufacturer. With EDG, this isn’t an issue. EDG enables devices from different manufacturers (and devices with different protocols) to interface, allowing the data to be merged and viewed together by the software. This makes it far easier to create applications, as it reduces costs, time, and ultimately, headaches.

Verification

The connection between M&V and regulation is in the word “verification” – how monitoring results demonstrates to regulators and other stakeholders that their requirements are being met and CO2 is successfully being contained. The problem is that organizations may be tempted to alter their data to make the results look more favorable. So, to prove that the data they’re presenting is accurate, organizations can opt for third-party verification. EDG, for instance, stores the raw data collected by remote sensors, so even though organizations have the ability to alter the data on their end, you can prove your due diligence by providing raw, unmodified data derived by an unbiased third party. 

Monitor And Verify Your Data With EDG

EDG not only allows organizations to monitor their CO2 sequestration sites from anywhere in the world, but can act as a third party to verify their results to stakeholders and regulating bodies. Our IoT cloud infrastructure allows devices from different manufacturers to interface with one another, spares technicians from having to go to the field to take readings in person, and stores the raw data so you can use it to make deeper analyses and prove your findings. Need a better remote CO2 monitoring system – one that offers third-party verification? Contact EDG today!

How to Set High IoT Security Standards for Your Team

The lack of globally accepted IoT security standards has been an issue in the IoT industry since usage of IoT devices exploded in popularity a decade ago, The industry’s security protocols simply couldn’t keep up with the rapid increase in threats. According to Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 IoT Threat Report, 57% of IoT devices are vulnerable to medium- or high-severity attacks. The sheer number of IoT devices deployed in OT, the insecure deployment of Internet-capable devices, and a lack of security updates for many devices have made IoT networks an easy target for hackers aiming to steal your data. 

Today, there are a few industry standards in place, a significant one being ETSI's EN 303 365, which highlights 13 requirements for manufactures securing their devices. However, many IoT devices do not meet these security guidelines, nor do they have the ability to be updated to meet them, because they were designed and installed before these standards existed. So, it’s up to individual actors to take security into their own hands. Fortunately, you don’t need to sacrifice large amounts of money and resources to implement robust security practices; you just need to commit to security measures early, create a review plan, and make sure these practices are revisited as your IoT network grows. 

Because many IoT devices are not meeting IoT security standards, we recommend following a few easy-to-implement security practices. Here are four measures you can make standard amongst both new and old team members that will help keep your IoT devices secure. 

1) Use a Password Manager

If you aren’t taking passwords seriously, you absolutely should be. After all, your system is only as strong as your weakest password. A vast majority, 81%, of the total number of security breaches leveraged stolen or weak passwords according to the 2020 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, so it’s safe to assume that if you haven’t considered passwords to be a weak point of your overall security approach, hackers certainly have. 

Hackers have concocted numerous methods for cracking passwords. Keyloggers, for instance, record all of your keyboard keystrokes, allowing them to see the information you input. They could also try to guess a password by trying out different words from a “dictionary” of common passwords. Or, if you’re still using the default passwords set by device manufacturers, a hacker hardly needs to put forth any effort at all. 

Worse? Those who reuse the same password for multiple accounts are going to see a much larger impact than a user who utilizes unique passwords for each of their accounts. A hacker who obtains your password and email can easily attempt that same email and password combination for a list of popular web accounts. By using unique passwords, a breach in one account will not impact the others.

Our Tip: At EDG, we employ a password manager to store and protect our passwords. This not only allows us to keep our passwords complex and unique (without the burden of attempting to remember them or needing to write them down somewhere), it notifies us if a password has been compromised. This gives us the ability to move quickly to change that password and respond to any potential breaches of data. Further, a password manager lets us restrict individual passwords or groups of passwords by setting up user roles with access levels, allowing us to provide account access to team members on an as-needed basis. (This is a great first step to practicing “Zero Trust”, which we’ll expand on later.)

2) Isolate Your IoT Devices

In most circumstances, your IoT devices will need access to the Internet, but if you’re using a Wi-Fi network to access the Internet, you’re exposing your devices to every other entity also using the same network. If another machine on the same network is compromised, it’s all too easy for hackers to use it as an entry point to go after all of the other devices sharing space on the same network. 

Our Tip: Use a dedicated Wi-Fi network (or multiple Wi-Fi networks) to isolate your IoT devices, and set up virtual LANs (VLANs) in your router to segment traffic between the Wi-Fi network of your IoT devices and your other Wi-Fi networks. To truly isolate your devices, make sure you have configured firewalls between each VLAN combination to make sure a device on one VLAN cannot communicate with a device on another VLAN. This will prevent hackers from seeing other devices logged into the same network, other devices logged into networks created by the same router, and other devices connected to the network via an Ethernet cable.

Of course, this tip specifically applies to Wi-Fi-connected devices. If you have the ability to connect your devices to the Internet using a cellular network, you have more inherent security built in since a machine on the same cellular network is less likely to see the other devices on it. (For a more robust cellular network, talk to your cellular device manufacturer about putting your devices on a VPN.) However, cellular networks don’t reach everywhere, and sometimes it makes more sense to use Wi-Fi instead. In those cases, it’s important that you configure these networks appropriately. 

3) Implement a “Zero Trust” Model

The traditional approach to IT security has always been to automatically trust users and endpoints within an organization’s perimeter, but in our modern digital environment, following a “trust but verify” leaves you exposed to ransomware and cyberattacks. A Zero Trust model, on the other hand, follows the principle of “never trust, always verify”. All users, whether in or outside your network, should be authenticated, authorized, and continuously validated for security configuration and posture before being granted or keeping access to apps and data.

Whereas the “trust but verify” model of old implicitly trusted users and assets based solely on their physical or network location, Zero Trust assumes there is no perimeter. For that reason, you should continuously monitor and validate that users and devices have the right privileges and attributes to be connected to your system. In addition to verifying access, Zero Trust helps you limit the damage should a breach occur by segmenting information and mandating additional layers of security. 

Our Tip: Zero Trust is more than just a digital standard for security, its principles should exist at all levels of your organization. At EDG, we have a “need to know” policy. This means we only provide information to team members if and when they need it. If they are not working on an application, we don't give them access to it, and when a team member will no longer be working with us, we follow a strict set of offboarding rules to ensure nothing sensitive leaves with them. Need-to-know access can be as simple as limiting password access to a user with a password manager, or hiding customer contact information from employees who only interface with internal team members.

4) Treat Development Repositories as Sacred

For software development teams, having a code repository is a godsend, offering a central place to save resources that everyone can pull from and more open collaboration channels amongst the team. It does this without sacrificing security. Most repositories have some sort of additional authentication measures and anti-malware protections in place. 

A code repository is only as secure as you make it, though. In 2020 alone, GitGuardian detected over 2 million secrets in public repositories. And, back in 2019, a lapse in password security by a SolarWinds intern — in which the password, “solarwinds123,” was stored on a private GitHub account — may have contributed to the SolarWinds hack. While it’s unclear how significant this leak ultimately was, it still highlights the risks associated when your repository is not properly maintained to high IoT security standards. 

Stack Overflow was made aware of a similar breach in May of 2019, when they discovered that a new user had gained moderator and developer level access across all of the sites in the Stack Exchange Network — which barely scraped the surface of what the attack truly entailed. After a deep analysis of the breach, the team realized that their repository URL was inadvertently referenced in a public GitHub repo containing some of their open source code. Stack Overflow has since made a number of changes to how they structure access to their systems and manage secrets to prevent attacks such as this from occurring in the future. 

Our Tip: It’s imperative that you treat your repositories as sacred places. All too often when we work with outside teams, we notice that their developers opt to store passwords and other app secrets on central repositories that everyone has access to. This is a huge violation of the Zero Trust doctrine in which information is segmented and nobody has access to something they don’t explicitly need. If a team member somewhere has access to a repository on their machine, any passwords or app secrets within it are at risk of being stolen should that machine fall into the wrong hands. 

Your IoT Data is Safe With EDG

Engineering Design Group (EDG) offers a complete IoT ecosystem for companies to monitor their distributed sensors from anywhere in the world. With EDG, find the hardware, software, and cloud infrastructure you need to build a secure, scalable, robust IoT system without sinking your own time and money into developing one from scratch. Whether we’re working with you to build a custom mobile app or you’re making use of our Client Portal to see all of your data in one place, EDG follows the strictest IoT security standards and protocols in the industry. If you’re interested in learning more about how our end-to-end solution enables you to seamlessly and securely collect IoT data, contact EDG today!

Bidirectional Environmental Monitoring Equipment: The Future of IoT

At the core of every IoT system are the “things”, the sensors deployed into the environment to collect and transfer data back to the Cloud. This environmental monitoring equipment serves as our eyes and ears out in the field, keeping us updated on current conditions and alerting us to potential problems. Almost all entities, such as homes, office buildings, factories, and even entire cities are connected to an IoT network to collect data and utilize the information for various purposes. 

IoT devices have the ability to gather and process a wide array of information about the environmental and operating conditions around them, and a lot depends on the type of sensors you utilize in your system. One of the biggest determining factors for your system’s capabilities is whether the devices you use allow for unidirectional or bidirectional communication. 

The Basics of Environmental Monitoring Equipment in IoT

The applications of IoT in environmental monitoring are numerous. This technology could be used for the purposes of monitoring weather conditions, water purity, temperature, air quality, and much more. The role that IoT sensors play in the system is simply to detect and measure any type of external information and replace it with a signal that humans and machines will understand. This signal is then sent back to a central management console where it can be analyzed.

Depending on the sensors available on the market that meet the demands of your application, your hardware may need to support a variety of different sensor interfaces. Common bus interfaces for IoT applications include the I2C bus, SPI bus, and UARTs, but may also be as simple as general purpose I/O, or single pin interfaces that can be used for analog-to-digital conversions, or PWMs.

The versatility of environmental monitoring equipment allows it to be applied in almost any situation in which some type of environmental condition needs to be observed and analyzed. Examples include but are not limited to: temperature sensors, humidity sensors, CO2 sensors, accelerometers, barometric pressure sensors, air particulate sensors, range finding sensors, strain gauges, motor controllers, GPIO expanders, analog-to-digital converters, and digital-to-analog converters. 

Unidirectional and Bidirectional Flow

Most environmental monitoring equipment is designed to simply collect data about the environment, not to respond in any way as a result of the data. This is known as unidirectional flow; data only goes one way. While applications can read the data the sensor sends them, they can’t send commands back to the equipment in the field. A good example of a unidirectional system is EDG’s environmental monitoring units (EMUs). These cellular- and Wi-Fi-based systems are only designed to monitor data such as temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide and relay it to our Client Portal.  

For many use cases, a unidirectional flow may be enough. In the case of a home security or equipment monitoring system, a simple notification from a sensor is all you need to spur you into action. For that reason, IoT technology in its most basic form has successfully reduced reaction time and improved the quality of task execution in a wide range of industries. 

However, settling with unidirectional environmental monitoring equipment in your IoT system could be limiting its functionality, too. Two-way, or bidirectional, devices allow for communication between the device and the management console and vice versa. In our everyday lives, this isn’t a foreign concept to us. If you’ve ever received a phone call on your mobile device and declined it from your smartwatch, you’ve seen two-way communication in action. Utilizing a bidirectional flow in an industrial IoT system is a whole other story.

Often, companies simply don’t consider how two-way communication could improve their operating processes. They’re more focused on data management and having the ability to retrieve data from previously disconnected assets that they can integrate into their management software. Making decisions about that data is then done via an entirely different workflow involving technicians physically visiting the site or manually intervening with the system. 

By failing to consider bidirectional environmental monitoring equipment, companies forego many of the advantages this technology lends to operations. With two-way connectivity, you can retire older devices and onboard new ones, recalibrate sensors throughout their lifecycle, take action on critical sensor events, and reconfigure different sensing functions and message frequency to improve battery life — all without being required to physically be on site. 

How Does a Bidirectional IoT Device Function?

Not only does bidirectional flow allow data to be sent from a device to the management console to be read by applications, it allows applications to send commands back to the device, creating a control loop with feedback which the device can respond to. This is how a closed control loop would work in practice using the example of a smart thermostat. 

1. You are about to return home from a trip to a house that is a chilly 62°F. Before you arrive, you want to set the temperature to 68°F so the system can warm up.

2. With a smart thermostat, you’re able to send a command from an application to the thermostat specifying a threshold of 68°F. Until it reaches that threshold, the heating system for the house should turn on and operate while the temperature increases. 

3. A sensor monitors the temperature while the heating system is operating.

4. Once the temperature reaches the specified threshold of 68°F, the control system uses this feedback and closes the loop by turning off the heating system. 

Bidirectional environmental monitoring equipment can be configured to provision more than a simple control loop, though. Take EDG’s environmental control units (ECUs), for instance. They are an evolution of our EMUs and enable two-way connectivity. They have 8 analog inputs which can read a voltage from 0 to 2.5 VDC, and with an app, users can set thresholds for any of these 8 inputs independently. 

In addition to the 8 inputs, ECUs also have 8 output controls called "relays". Effectively, each relay acts as a switch. When a user brings power into them, the relay will either allow power to pass through (when the relay is "closed"), or the relay will block the power from passing through (when the relay is in an "open" state). 

Numerous Applications

The 8 relays on EDG’s ECU100 series have a 5 A switching capacity, and can switch voltages up to 250 VAC or 30 VDC, making them suitable for a wide variety of closed-loop remote control applications:

• Industrial-grade thermostats

• Water flow and tank level monitoring

• Irrigation and sprinkler systems

• Factory equipment control

• Power switching, protection, and circuit breakers

• Alarm response

Addressing Security Concerns of Bidirectional Systems

Like our EMUs, EDG offers ECUs in two varieties: Cellular or Wi-Fi. When using wireless connectivity, there has been a reluctance in the past to utilize bidirectional flow due to data security concerns. The idea of exposing critical operational controls to the Internet usually drives companies to stick with the older, unidirectional systems they know best. However, two-way connectivity can be safe and secure. EDG has taken several precautions to ensure device data and controls are never compromised, including:

• No Default Passwords: The authentication credentials for new EDG devices are always unique. There is never a scenario where a bad actor can enter default information (such as a default password), and establish communication with a device.

• Device-side and User-side Authentication: Each ECU must authenticate with our cloud infrastructure before it can transmit data or receive a command from an application. Additionally, any user or application attempting to read data from or send a command to an ECU must first be verified by our cloud infrastructure. 

• Secure Data Pathways: ECUs use only secured data pathways for communication between the ECU and EDG's cloud infrastructure.

• Lifetime OTA Security Updates: Firmware changes addressing security vulnerabilities are deployed from the EDG factory using over-the-air (OTA) updates. This allows us to keep all deployed systems up to date. As long as the system has an active Internet connection, it will receive these updates. This saves time and money for customers with systems that are in hard to reach places, as they do not need to be disassembled and returned to EDG. An ECU that does not have power applied during an update will automatically be updated the next time power is applied.

Discover an End-to-End IoT Solution

Engineering Design Group (EDG) is more than a provider of innovative environmental monitoring equipment. We offer a complete IoT ecosystem that enables companies to monitor distributed sensors from anywhere in the world. By utilizing our hardware, software, and cloud infrastructure, our customers have everything they need to operate a secure, reliable IoT system without expending money, time, and other resources to build and maintain their own. Our end-to-end solution puts the data in your hands without any of the hassle. 

If the demands of your company require remote monitoring of environmental conditions, equip yourself with the right tools for the job. Our EMUs and ECUs can be remotely monitored and controlled, bringing data from around the globe to your fingertips and allowing your team to respond immediately. Whether you’re interested in learning more about the environmental monitoring equipment we develop or are ready to revolutionize your approach to IoT data collection, contact EDG today!

Meet the Most User-Friendly IoT Connectivity Management Platform

The internet of Things (IoT) is relatively young; while the term was first used in 1999, IoT didn’t begin gaining traction until around 2010, and once it did, it hit the mass market in only four years. Let’s just say, advances in this field happen fast, and our technologies continue to drive the industry. 

Engineering Design Group (EDG) has changed a lot over the last year, and new and old customers alike are in need of an introduction (or a reintroduction). So... who are we? EDG was created to simplify remote sensor monitoring for organizations with large numbers of devices. Our platform brings data from anywhere in the world to our customers’ fingertips, allowing them to easily identify trends and make predictions. Below, we’ll go into further detail about EDG's mission, walking you through our end-to-end IoT connectivity management platform.

The Problem

While those in a wide range of industries rely on remote sensors to receive crucial updates about their systems, a reliable solution can take up to two years to design and build from the ground up. The problem is that businesses and engineers both tend to excel at individual pieces. Hardware designers don’t specialize in cloud infrastructure, and due to the multitude of sensor protocols, mobile app developers don’t have a unified way to communicate with them. 

Not only that, but in the age of IoT, it's commonplace for companies to need a large amount of data from a large number of devices for machine learning algorithms, artificial intelligence, and general automation. This means the data must be accessible in a way that is secure, scalable, and robust, which is extremely challenging if your expertise does not cover everything from hardware to the cloud. You need a team with extensive experience in hardware, firmware, cloud infrastructure, and application design, and that team has to consider security, scalability, and robustness from day one. EDG does just that.

EDG’s Mission

EDG saw numerous companies struggle to design cloud infrastructure that could monitor and control large numbers of devices, so, we set out to solve this problem. Our mission is to allow industries to monitor distributed sensors from around the globe, putting data at your fingertips to save you time and money. Our complete IoT connectivity management platform gives customers a scalable and robust solution while providing complete security from the sensor to the user for the lifetime of our product.

How We Achieve That Mission

The University Researcher

Our intention has always been to provide a robust, end-to-end IoT connectivity management platform, and we began pursuing our mission from the very beginning. One of our first clients, a geologist with the University of Wyoming’s Center for Economic Geology Research, needed to monitor data in eight locations, requiring them to drive to each site periodically and read the data manually or with a USB key. This traditional approach would suffer from human error, drifts in methodology, and other inconsistencies. So, we created a fully automated, wireless network of distributed systems, which uses cellular IoT technologies to send sensor data through our cloud infrastructure to a simple web application - the EDG Client Portal. Here, researchers can access data from each remote system through a single webpage from anywhere in the world.

We built the EDG Client Portal with future customers in mind, but also equipped it with functionality to meet the geologist’s specific needs; he was able to securely log in and monitor sensor data, assign names to individual systems, create groups of systems, download sensor data to a CSV, and even share his data by inviting research partners as guest users to the Portal. The project utilized the first iteration of our EDG006 Wi-Fi and cellular controller (before it included an expansion connector) and an early version of our API, which is the data pathway to our cloud infrastructure, allowing applications to securely control and monitor our hardware. 

To read more about our work with the university researcher, check out this case study.

Our Evolution

In our early days, data flow was unidirectional, meaning we could only transmit sensor data from the hardware to the EDG Client Portal; the system didn’t yet allow users to send commands to our devices. We quickly added an expansion connector to our cellular and Wi-Fi controller, which made a variety of sensor interfaces available in our own unique stackable architecture. We leveraged this connector almost immediately to integrate new sensors and control mechanisms for several customized client solutions. These customers saw EDG as the supplier for their complete IoT solutions, which moved us into the area of hardware enclosures and mobile applications that leverage our cloud infrastructure.

Suddenly, we realized we had grown into a complete solution provider; we had created a data collection platform that allows customers to monitor and control any number of EDG systems through a single application dashboard. This is uncommon in the remote connectivity industry, as many companies offer only hardware or only software, not both. Our ability to offer hardware and software - a complete IoT connectivity management platform - comes with a huge benefit; we have full control over security with minimal reliance on third parties. 

Our End-To-End IoT Connectivity Management Platform

The Hardware

EDG’s Environmental Monitoring Units (EMUs) are foundational to our IoT connectivity management platform, and they come in two wireless varieties, Wi-Fi-based or cellular. Both of these options are capable of measuring temperature, humidity, and CO2, and are built with a stackable bus to eliminate board-to-board cabling, thereby reducing system complexity and improving reliability.

We also provide lifetime over-the-air (OTA) security updates to these systems. That means each system is kept up-to-date without user intervention, defending your assets against the most recently uncovered security vulnerabilities.

The Software 

At the application level, the EDG Client Portal provides basic monitoring capabilities for EDG hardware, giving customers the ability to monitor sensor data from any number of EMUs. Users can assign names to individual systems, create groups of systems, download sensor data to a CSV, and share data with partners by inviting them as guest users to the Portal.

Each of our customers utilize IoT in a unique way, and they each require a unique approach. For more complex solutions, EDG can create advanced web apps, mobile apps, or desktop applications. Our mobile apps allow companies to monitor and send requests to hardware directly from a smartphone, making them an invaluable tool for technicians who service fielded devices. 

EDG’s API and Cloud Infrastructure

EDG’s API is the intermediary between our cloud infrastructure and the hardware and software. Both devices and applications use the API to authenticate with our cloud infrastructure, preventing bad actors from breaching your data and malicious devices from attacking your application.

For developers, the most interesting part is that EDG’s API unifies data retrieval from devices of different manufacturers and protocols. Here’s how it works: on the hardware side, developers handle nuances in data transmission with their own set of API endpoints. On the software side, application developers use their own set of API endpoints to access all data from the distribution systems, regardless of the sensor manufacturer, protocol, or the system which the data came from.

EDG’s cloud infrastructure can be viewed as a historical mailbox for devices and applications, which tracks when mail (your data) was sent, received, and read. Think of the API as the “key” for hardware or software to access the mailbox. Your data is retained for historical access, and device-side and application-side events are logged to provide a complete picture of each command and data transmission. 

Together, EDG’s API and cloud infrastructure work to supply secure and scalable data pathways, ensuring that your distributed network stays reliable as it grows.

Third Party Support

After building out the cloud infrastructure that serves as the foundation for our end-to-end IoT connectivity management platform, we realized that businesses seeking to integrate third parties could benefit from it as well. If you’re developing hardware and your app developers need to access your device data, we’ll work with you to connect your hardware to our API so you can share that data with your partners and simplify software development.

Our Cost-Saving Model

Building and maintaining your own remote sensor monitoring platform can be extremely pricey. Creating the cloud infrastructure alone comes with an array of costs beyond just tools. You’ll need a team of experienced developers that understand the nuances of embedded hardware and complex distributed networks. And on top of that, you’ll need a team to be available to maintain security and scalability as you grow. With EDG, you don’t have to worry about these financial burdens. EDG is a SaaS provider, meaning customers pay only for what they need as they grow. Our pricing model is fully customizable, allowing customers to pay per device, per month, adjusting the number of devices as needed.

Not only does EDG save customers money when it comes to cloud infrastructure, we also eliminate the need for an around-the-clock team. Should any issues arise, our staff are ready to respond at a moment’s notice. Our system can be scaled without sacrificing reliability, and we’ll manage the security, saving you from having to hire experts in VPNs, gateway configuration, firewalls, and data encryption. By handling every aspect of remote sensor monitoring, our IoT connectivity management platform makes the process convenient, easy, and incredibly affordable.

Our Vision

IoT technology is rapidly advancing, and we strive to stay at the forefront of innovation. We’re working to build more than an IoT connectivity management platform; our vision is to create an ecosystem for IoT in which devices and apps can operate so securely and reliably that these pieces become an afterthought, allowing your business to focus on its core competencies.

Get Started With EDG’s IoT Connectivity Management Platform

If your organization relies on large numbers of sensors, you know the repercussions of finding out too late that something has gone wrong, and you also know the steep barriers to designing a remote monitoring system. With our hardware, applications, and our complete IoT connectivity management platform, those worries can be a thing of the past. EDG’s technologies will bring data to your fingertips, so you’ll know there’s a problem before it’s too late. If you’re interested in learning more, would like to speak to an expert, or are ready to dive in and revolutionize your sensor monitoring process, contact EDG today! We’d love to hear from you.

Advantages of Multi-Carrier SIMs for Cellular IoT

EDG’s cellular-based environmental monitoring units (EMUs) offer connectivity using an onboard SIM which supports multiple Tier 1 network carriers around the globe. This means your EMU will arrive ready to operate using leading cellular networks regardless of the installation site. To begin transmitting sensor data to the EDG Client Portal, simply connect an antenna, apply power, and the EMU will establish a network connection using the strongest network carrier at the device’s location.

The SIMs used on EDG’s cellular EMUs bring numerous benefits to IoT applications over traditional carrier-specific SIM cards:

EMU006

EDG’s EMU006 uses a global SIM which supports multiple network-carriers to transmit temperature, humidity, and CO2 data to the EDG Client Portal.

Scalability

• Historically, a SIM must be purchased from a network carrier with known coverage at the installation location. This means researching the location, running signal strength tests, and determining which SIM provides the best coverage at the site. For sites with known coverage, the SIMs on EDG’s cellular EMUs eliminate this step, as they will detect which network carriers are available at the installation site, and will select and connect to the strongest network automatically. This is especially useful for scalable systems with hundreds or thousands of devices, where it might not be feasible to compare the performance of multiple networks prior to SIM selection.

Inventory

• With traditional SIMs, keeping an inventory of systems on-hand gets complicated as devices must be pre-determined for a location by that location’s network-carrier. Since the SIMs on EDG’s cellular EMUs detect the network carrier after installation, you only need to stock one product SKU.

Fleet Management and Border Crossings

• Is your EMU crossing into a region with limited coverage by a single network carrier? SIMs which support multiple network-carriers are ideal for fleet management applications. (Did we mention our cellular EMUs support GNSS?)

Robustness

• In locations where the SIM can select from multiple network carriers, a fallback communication path is available to the EMU during an outage. The result is less application down-time compared to traditional carrier-specific SIMs.

• Network-carriers are improving their coverage all the time by installing new cellular towers. With a traditional SIM, a new tower may mean you want to change your SIM to support a network with a stronger signal. With the SIM on EDG’s cellular EMUs, your device will always communicate using the strongest network connection available.

Convenience

• Instead of paying multiple service fees for each of your network providers, data fees are handled entirely through EDG. This simplifies your payment process, eliminating the need to work with multiple third party carriers for your distributed network of devices.

• Moving a device from one location to another? The global SIM has you covered. EDG’s devices send data to the best available network at the device’s location.

It’s compelling. So try a cellular EMU for your application today. Our cellular appliances support 11 network carriers in North America and many more world-wide.

Find out more in our recent case study, or contact us to schedule a meeting. We’re here to help.