“Is your refrigerator running?” While the question is part of a classic kid’s prank call, it is no laughing matter when it comes to refrigerated life-saving vaccines and blood bags.
Helium IoT Framework provides industrial manufacturers turnkey embedded solutions with extended connectivity range, longer battery life, security and cloud based analytics.
San Francisco startup, Helium, announced this week an “Internet of Things” cloud framework designed to securely scale and simplify embedded enterprise and industrial IoT solutions. Based in part on Erlang, an extremely scalable and highly reliable server infrastructure programming language founded by Ericsson and used by hyperscale over-the-top social media platforms including WhatsApp, Helium envisions industrial companies embedding the framework and sensors into appliances and machines to serve thousands of end points.
The Helium IoT framework combines smart sensors, cloud infrastructure for complex data analytics and the Helium Network to offer a fully integrated, end-to-end platform, including network connectivity, data management, business logic and analytics, and a cloud-management dashboard.
“There is immense potential in giving physical things the power of perception to provide businesses with the tools they need to make highly informed decisions,” said Rob Chandhok, president and COO of Helium. “Helium’s platform is an end-to-end solution that moves at the speed of software so your insights grow along with your business.”
Helium sensors provide intelligence at the edge of the network and are optimized for long battery life. The network operates at both 2.4 Ghz and 900 Mhz, dynamically, to avoid congestion. More importantly, the machine-learning sensors collect information and, once analyzed, sends insights and relevant information when required.
Health care, along with the food and beverage markets, will be Helium’s initial primary target markets. Through the smart Helium IoT framework, the company enables reduced risk and improved inventory control for temperature-sensitive items that include blood bags and vaccines. Over time, Helium plans help industrial clients reduce parts, maintenance and operating cost by predicting machine failures or outages before they occur.
Helium Systems raised $16 million in Series A funding in December 2014.