The Internet of Things for Smart Farming — Part 1
PROMISES, PROMISES
This post concentrates on farming, or smart agriculture to be precise, but I don’t think I’m going out on a limb to suggest that these thoughts will no doubt repeat themselves in other industries (in-fact I’m struggling to think of any exceptions and am open to suggestions!). There is so much feverish discussion on how the Internet of Things will change everything (from clever refrigerators to sensored-up pigs); having as much or more impact as when we started to adopt the Internet into our day-to-day lives. It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement and hype (after all, the IoT is currently at the top of the Gartner’s hype cycle) while not considering where we actually are and where we need to get to.
SMART AGRICULTURE
Smart Agriculture is one of the typical case studies that you see on almost every presentation that mentions IoT. The promise of being able to put sensors into (or under) fields and be able to monitor and predict their behaviour from afar sounds very attractive. It’s the initial step in a fully connected and responsive supply chain and a vital component of being able to grow more whilst wasting less. Finding large, real-world case studies is quite difficult — that’s why we’re doing our own (more details on that soon!).
As a first step, we looked at what was on offer around the world. We were initially surprised at the amount of different sensors and sensor systems already available in the Smart Agriculture marketplace (especially from the US) although most of the vendors seemed to come from a more scientific background; with high associated costs and basic features (with highly accurate measurements) rather than what we tend to think of as IoT: plentiful low costs sensors that work with minimal configuration and are self-sustaining, being ‘just good enough’.
REVIEW OF SMART AGRICULTURE SENSORS
Here are the main sensors systems available that we evaluated and their associated costs and capabilities (on a 5/5 = great basis):
Price: ⭐️
Features: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Value for money: ⭐️
Comments: (+) Solid, highly accurate sensors. (-) Expensive and large ‘data loggers’
Price: ⭐️⭐️
Features: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Value for money: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Comments: (+) Solid and capable sensor. (-) Expensive ‘data loggers’
Price: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Features: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Value for money: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Comments: (+) Extremely cheap (sensors). (-) Not very robust, technology needs updating
Price: ⭐️
Features: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Value for money: ⭐️
Comments: (+) Well built, multiple depths measured, good case studies. (-) Expensive
Price: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Features: ⭐️
Value for money: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Comments: (+) Popular sensors, cheap and easy to use. (-) Older technology
Price: ⭐️⭐️
Features: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Value for money: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Comments: (+) Extremely well packaged. (-) Expensive base station needed
Price: ⭐️⭐️
Features: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Value for money: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Comments: (+) Good range of sensors and add-ons available. (-) Require considerable custom software development
Price: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Features: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Value for money: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Comments: (+) Low power, huge range, sensor agnostic. (-) Units don’t connect directly to the internet
Price: ⭐️
Features: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Value for money: ⭐️
Comments: (+) Multiple measurements, long battery life, tiny and easy to install. (-) Bluetooth only so needs ‘manual’ collection, consumer focused
Homebrew prototype
Price: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Features: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Value for money: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Comments: (+) Multiple measurements, simple components. (-) Assembly and coding time
You’ll notice that on their web pages, many of these sensor systems make no mention of the Internet of Things; instead they talk about data logging which conjures up older images of having to take a laptop into a field to connect to a port. That doesn’t represent a good user-experience for anyone and will clearly not scale with the Internet of Things. To answer the question of ‘how can I predict what will happen in my fields’ we were looking for cheap, sustainable IoT platforms that we can see farmers of the future buying and installing.
Stay tuned for Part 2 to find out what we chose, why and how we are using them in our Smart Farming trial across the UK and in the meantime register for early access to our free trial!
About the Author
Alex works at Senseye — developing a product that helps businesses to reduce the costs associated with using and maintaining their valuable machines, equipment and physical assets, by predicting the future of data they already collect, allowing them to keep ‘one step ahead’.
