VoBos in the Wild – Second Edition

As mentioned in last summer’s inaugural “VoBos in the Wild,” it is always awesome for us to see the various ways customers come up with to use a VoBo. At that time, so many use cases were popping up that we intended to showcase new, interesting use cases on a more frequent basis. Unfortunately things do not always go to plan. Better late than never, though!

Far and away the most valuable benefit LPWANs provide is improvement in safety. This is particularly true in large industrial operations like those at refineries and chemical plants where small mishaps can easily turn into life threatening situations. While savings, efficiencies, better operational data, etc. are all fantastic, they run a distant second when compared to the health and safety of personnel.

The below picture shows a great example of this. This VoBo is deployed deep within a processing facility. It is used to monitor calibration gas pressures for critical process analyzers. The customer is focused primarily on health and safety during their rollout of LoRa/LoRaWANs. They shared the picture as it demonstrates how a $600 VoBo can both drastically reduce their staff’s exposure to potentially dangerous equipment and situations while also saving significant time and money. Now, instead of having to access the facility and driving to the site to confirm that pressures are sufficient, the field tech can check it on his computer from the comfort of his office. It is unclear as to how to precisely quantify the value of all of the various improvements made to this process. Almost entirely eliminating the need to go into a dangerous environment, though, is far and away the most valuable benefit.