18.10.2018 by Pamela Buchwald

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LTE-M: A story about bicycle thieves, supermarket cherries and kid’s smart watches

For many of us the situation is all too common: A few years ago, Velocate’s founder Michael’s bike got stolen even though it was locked. Feeling paralyzed as he was unable to get it back, he came up with the idea of a trackable sensor on the bike. However, a fancy sensor would most likely result in thieves getting rid of it before moving the bike and selling it on the black market. So he and his co-founders created a solution that looks just like a common bicycle rear light - but has a “secret” GPS sensor included. The MVP (minimum viable product) back then consisted of a sensor device and a simple platform to track it.  

Want more? Here you go: In simple terms, Babbler is an intelligent cargo tracker. But there is a lot more to the little hockey-puck-like sensor that magnetically sticks to cargo containers or trailer doors: It tells you exactly where your cargo is and how it is being treated – including a log for temperature, shock and door opening. As Babbler’s founder explains exemplary, cherries can be tracked exactly on their way to the supermarket to guarantee the cold chain has been maintained throughout the entire journey. Less time-consuming paperwork, improved security during transit and reduced liability are just a few benefits for Babbler’s customers – and the reason why it’s an interesting/valuable startup for us to collaborate with.  

Not just another smart watch – but two brilliant ideas for providing live-saving information of newborns and monitoring a children’s location every minute. Neebo and Allterco came up with intelligent watch-like trackers with the potential to make every day a little easier for families: know what is happening, keep track of heart rate, thermal state and oxygen level remotely, and never miss an emergency.

PURPOSE OF THE ONSITE TESTING: GET IN TOUCH WITH BUSINESS UNITS 

Scene change to our LTE-M program: Velocate, Babbler, Allterco and Neebo are four of the 20 solution partners in our LTE-M Prototyping. All of them took part in the onsite-testing weeks in Rotterdam and Krakow back in September, where startups with their IoT products learned about the performance of their devices in a real LTE-M environment. At the same time T-Systems business units got insights about the different demands of their business customers.  

For Velocate, Babbler, Allterco and Neebo this does not only mean to get valuable feedback on their products and assumptions from our network and business experts. Also they discuss possible frameworks of collaboration, implementation scenarios for their business models and future perspectives.  

There are many more great ideas and business models among the 20 startups of our LTE-M prototyping program. Have a look at the videos and find out!

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

The hubraum LTE-M prototyping program involves eight National Corporations and 20 startups from 13 countries. The program has been launched to explore new use-cases and prototypes on IoT solutions based on innovative network connectivity provided by Deutsche Telekom.

THE VIDEOS 

Neebo: www.youtube.com/watch

Allterco: www.youtube.com/watch

Velocate: www.youtube.com/watch

Babbler: www.youtube.com/watch