Sateliot will deliver 5G satellite connectivity to BeeWaze solutions, allowing beekeepers to monitor the temperature, weight and humidity of beehives and track pollination.
Sateliot, the first company to operate a low-Earth orbit nanosatellite constellation with 5G standards, in collaboration with S4IoT, a developer of IoT solutions, have launched the world’s first technology for remote monitoring of beehives and pollination.
This comes as a response to the significant decrease that bee, butterfly, and other pollinator populations have experienced in recent decades, which directly threatens food security. It is estimated that 87% of global crop production depends, to some extent, on pollination, and even if pollinators contribute around $500 billion a year to global food production, according to Ohio State University, only 15% of beehives are currently monitored.
BeeWaze solution allows beekeepers to monitor the temperature, weight and humidity of beehives online, as well as the conditions and weather forecasts of the exact area where they are located. Similarly, during crop flowering, agricultural producers can monitor the pollination process with updated information on bee flow per minute and per day.
With Sateliot’s help, beekeepers and agriculture producers in areas without internet access will be able to monitor bees and level of pollination. Also, farmers can verify the activity of the beehives contracted to pollinate their crops, reducing the time dedicated to field visits and optimizing costs.
Jaume Sanpera, CEO of Sateliot, explains the impact of this technology on beehive monitoring:
“Our standard IoT connectivity of NTN can eliminate the burden of beehive monitoring in rural areas. We provide affordable and more reliable technology along with the commitment to help beekeepers save their bees, which are a very important part of our ecosystem and the basis of the food chain worldwide.”
Until now, connecting to legacy satellite operators involved high costs because it required buying additional hardware such as antennas and signal receivers, as well as contracting connection services for each device. Sateliot leverages the 3GPP standard protocol, which is already the norm for any MNO or MVNO for their terrestrial cellular networks, and allows IoT devices to seamlessly switch to the satellite when the cellular network is unavailable. This is possible thanks to standard roaming agreements generated with the user’s current operators, at a price very similar to that of normal mobile networks.
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