Earth Notes: On the "Dull is Good" Cleanweb Meetup (2015)

Cleanweb, IoT

"Cleanweb" is the use of connected IT to address resource and sustainability challenges.

The meeting was hosted by Makers Academy: thanks!

A meeting built on the premise that IoT will be truly successful when it blends into the background, possibly as a series of boring beige boxes, and does not require early-adopter types to continually fiddle with it. (But the security should not fail before the device otherwise does, which is hard to get right in the absence of a crystal ball.)

This is especially true of 'green' IoT, witness the OpenTRV fit-and-forget design principles.

This was part of our dissemination work for IoT Launchpad.

Speakers and Talks

The four speakers and talks (with some key extracts) were:

• Dr Jon Lewis, Telensa — The amazing comeback of the street light [YouTube video] originally titled Shaving Brum's bills 40%, one streetlight at a time. With a "free" network couldn't you do other things? Postal tracking ... brand engagement
• Andrew Phillips, Gliide: DATA - The Future of Sustainable Services [YouTube video] Our service is transport - Our product is data Andrew described himself as: Positive futurist and technology evangelist — Andrew brings years of experience in software design, development and consulting from enterprise IT providers such as ServiceNow and Oracle. Andrew is a firm believer in the ability of technology and innovation to create the next generation of exceptional sustainable products.
• Matthew Fox, Connected Home Consortium: [The IoT] Business Case for Social Landlords [YouTube video]: Who Gets Payback? - Tenant or Landlord. Needs to be both. Depends who funds cost of installation. Return to landlord more persuasive. Matthew described himself thus: The Connected Home Consortium acts as an intermediary between Social Landlords and the Internet of Things. Matthew spent the last 10 years as Chief Executive of Servite/Viridian Housing, one of the larger housing associations with 16,000 homes from the Midlands to Sussex.
• Joe Fay, The Register: 20 years as a tech journo [YouTube video] originally and modestly titled 20 Years of Missing the Boat. Things I've learned - Bubbles do burst. This time is unlikely to be that different. Relationships matter. There are some very very smart people out there. Smart people can do very very well if they work hard and/or well connected. Depends who you're working for though... Joe described himself: Covering technology for over 20 years but sadly not as rich as Bill Gates yet, even from breathing the same US air as him. The Register is the world's leading tech and science news service for pros.

Follow-up News

2017-08-08: The Register: Smart streetlight bods Telensa nearly double full-year revenues:

Telensa mainly makes smart streetlights on which it hangs its proprietary ultra narrowband (UNB) low power, wide area (LPWA) infrastructure Internet of Things (IoT) network. In plain English, this means they build LED streetlights that can be wirelessly controlled. Its UNB network runs in unlicensed spectrum, similar to more widely adopted IoT connectivity standards such as Sigfox and LoRaWAN, both of which also operate in unlicensed spectrum. Unusually, the company moved its production from Asia back to the UK — Pencoed in South Wales, to be precise — earlier this year, citing the "reputation for quality and long-term cost-effectiveness" of the Sony UK Technology Centre, which now makes around a quarter of a million streetlights per year for Telensa's customers.