Case Study
Enerbrain - IoT for Smart Buildings
ABOUT
Buildings use around 40% of energy in the world, often in insufficient way
Most of the large buildings such as shopping centers and airports suffer from several challenges when it comes to their Heating and Cooling systems:
- Low level of comfort
- Systems are un-aware of indoor conditions
- Complex management interfaces are poorly configured
- Energy consumption keep growing
- Aren’t engaging with their occupants
Enerbrain has created a cloud-driven set of technologies which combines hardware, algorithms, software and mobile apps into a solution that not only increases comfort but also achieves energy savings of up to 30%.
It is compatible with existing building management systems, simple to install and works without the need of expert supervision.
CHALLENGE
Securely managing data growth in different markets
Enerbrain’s Energy Cloud solution has been quickly adopted by customer all over Europe. This has created complex management challenges both in terms of growing data needs and having secure connections from devices back to the cloud infrastructure.
The lifecycle of devices should be closely managed, associating their unique IDs as well as data points are critical for smooth operation in multiple markets.
In addition, different countries have specific sources and standards for environmental and buildings data, so smoothly combining all data points is essential while offering products to customers.
SOLUTION
Enerbrain devices and sensors are connected via Soracom Air SIM, Soracom Air for Sigfox and Canal.
Beam is leveraged to send data to AWS IoT.
Gate and Canal are used for devices administration.
Funnel will be used for supporting Data Analytics.
Harvest is used to collect base metrics, it provides fast visualization and accessible simple storage API used for troubleshooting.
WHY SORACOM
Real-time management of SIM cards and Sigfox devices
Standardized data pipelines using any communication protocol
Secure communication with devices
Single network connected to AWS services
Efficient data visualization
As Enerbrain is a data-driven company, it was very important for them to work with a partner that not only understands data, but also has a set of services enabling them to control the flow of information and integrate with Amazon Web Services.
Together with SORACOM Canal, Gate and Beam, Enerbrain can securely integrate data from their cellular or Sigfox devices into AWS IoT and communicate back to them whenever required for tasks such as troubleshooting and upgrades.
The real-time pay-as-you-go model, single-platform SIM cards and Sigfox devices management, combined with Harvest data makes it very practical for Enerbrain to manage devices in multiple countries and control their data consumption. Soracom Harvest also helps to quickly visualize base per-device data which has greatly improved their operational efficiency.
Services in use
• SORACOM Air: smart connectivity for IoT
• SORACOM Air for Sigfox: centralized management for cellular and Sigfox
• SORACOM Canal: AWS VPC peering
• SORACOM Gate: private IoT LAN
• SORACOM Harvest: serverless data visualization
FUTURE PLANS
Improved operational efficiency with cross-data mapping
As Enerbrain is gaining traction in more and more regions, it is important to continue to improve their operational efficiency. Today they monitor device states in their dashboard using Soracom APIs – in the future they plan to integrate with Harvest APIs to achieve increased cross-data mapping and connection between their products, providers and business support systems.
With Enerbrain’s customer base, their data pipeline will start to scale and are planning to have close integration with SORACOM Funnel as this will help increase data processing capabilities while simplifying the code base required for it.
When Enerbrain and Soracom started collaborating, Enerbrain had customers in two countries: Italy and France. Thanks to the collaboration with Soracom and being an early adopter of Soracom Air for Sigfox, Enerbrain has been able to confidently expand its products & Services to various regions now with customers in Americas, Japan, India, Emirates and most of Europe. Enerbrain opened a subsidiary in Japan in February 2018 and looks forward to continued collaboration with the Soracom team.