post Details

About the company

Libelium is a Spanish company founded in 2006. with deployments in more than 120 countries. Their motto is to connect any sensor via any connectivity to any cloud platform. Libelium’s main product is Waspmote, an IoT end device supporting various connectivity protocols. Good thing about Libelium is that they offer  more than 110 sensors of various kind to detect gases, events, water, ions, cars, and even radiation. With it’s products, Libelium is covering quite a lot of verticals: smart cities, smart environment, smart water, smart metering, security and emergencies, retail, logistics, industrial control, smart agriculture, home automation and eHealt.

There is a quite nice and inspiring video about the company here.

Products

Waspmote:

Waspmote is the end device to which sensors are connected. Waspmote is the end device version for developers since in order for it to work functions and scripts needs to be written in C++ programming language. Additionally, Waspmote comes as circuit board so it needs casing for itself or to be part of a bigger product. The advantage of Waspomote is the lower price and the ability to implement additional functions, or sensors from 3^rd parties, but the drawback is the need for time-consuming code writing and the need for certification of end product.

Plug & Sense

Plug&Sense is basically Waspmote but packed in a fine case and wrapped around with GUI interface so there is no need to write code, only to configure the functions that you need. This product comes with a higher price and supports only the Libelium sensors, but with Plug&Sense as it’s name suggest you can measure from the moment you install it and there is no need for development or certification.

Meshlium

Meshlium is a gateway/base station that supports a large number of communication protocols. It integrates very well with Libelium’s end devices, although it can work with other devices a swell. Although Waspomote can serve as a Gateway, it is better to use Meshlium because it has more functions, supports more connectivity types and comes with integrations for lots of Cloud platforms.

All three devices (Waspmote, Plug&Sens and Meshlium) support various connectivity protocols: 802.15.4/ZigBee, Sigfox, LoRa and LoRaWAN 868/900/915/433MHz, WiFi, 4G, 3G, GPRS+GPS, BLE, Bluetooth Pro, RFID/NFC, GPS, and industrial protocols RS-485, RS-232, CAN Bus, Modbus, 4-20mA current Loop.

Other products and services

Other products from Libelium are Smart parking sensor this is effectively a dual sensor (magnetic field and RSSI) which uses SigFox and LoRaWAN and it can be installed on the road or below the road and it has batteries that last 10+ years. Then there is the MySignals product which is an eHealt device that measures over 15 biometric readings and sends it to cloud (body position, temperature, EMG sensor, ECG sensor, airflow, GSR sensor, pressure, SPO2, glucose, spirometer, alarm button, snoring sensor, sound generator). There is also a mobile phones scanner that scans WiFi or Bluetooth devices and detects how much and when there are devices in some area.

Regarding sensors availability this is one of the parts where Libelium shines since they have more than 110 sensors for various measurements. The list can be found here

Apart from devices on Libelium site you can find the IoT marketplace, cooking hacks site for DIY guys. Libelium offers not only hardware but also various services and training courses.

Customers, verticals and solutions

There is no need to write much about this since there is a great overview on Libelium site. This overview is actually the most impressive thing regarding Libelium because they have so many well described and explained use cases. Libelium solutions that are most interesting to me are smart parking, fire detection, air quality measurement, tank levels monitoring, leakage monitoring, hazardous gases and liquids monitoring, asset tracking in logistics, indoor positioning, smart agriculture segment, eHealt, UV radiation monitoring and alerting.

Conclusion

Libelium is definitely an interesting IoT company since they cover both sensors and connectivity plus they have integrations with very large number of IoT platforms. So for a systems integrator or developer all you need to do is to make the application that meets your customers needs. Of course, there must be a problem to be solved or need in the market to be met first.  The part that impressed me the most are so many use cases in quite a lot or verticals that I can find direct impact and value.