The person, who was in a remote area that could not be reached by GPS signal, was located by triangulating his position through Sigfox’s 0G network – which is specifically designed for the IoT – to which a GPS tracker from the manufacturer Invoxia was connected.
Basque Country, Spain – December 14th, 2021 – Sigfox’s 0G network has been successfully used in the rescue of a 90-year-old person who went missing at the end of November in the Basque Country, in the north of Spain. After 24 hours without news from him, a patrol formed by the Ertzaintza, Cruz Roja, DYA, the Basque Rescue Dog Group, Civil Protection, Firefighters and agents of the Local Police of the municipality of the missing person exhaustively searched the areas where he could be found, without preliminary results.
At that point, it was taken into account that the missing person was carrying an Invoxia device, a GPS tracker that had been purchased by the family to facilitate its location in cases like this. This device allows the wearer to be geolocated with great precision by means of a function for defining ‘safety zones’. When the wearer of the tracker enters or leaves these zones, alerts are sent to the cellphone connected to the device. Thus, an attempt was made to locate the person, but the device stopped emitting a GPS signal as it was in a remote area with abundant vegetation.
0G: the dedicated network for the IoT that has facilitated the rescue
The authorities therefore contacted Sigfox, the world’s leading Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity provider and the creator and operator of the 0G network to which the device was connected, to join the search. By triangulating the device’s signal and several communication antennas, they were able to provide a very approximate location of the person, who was in a very closed streambed with symptoms of hypothermia, but fortunately with stable vital signs.
Sigfox’s 0G network offers an alternative means of communication between devices without the need for them to be tied to the coverage and availability of the conventional mobile network, sending and receiving data without the need for SIM cards, internet connection or WiFi. The base stations simply transmit radio messages with a universal protocol, while the associated devices simply need a small silicon chip. In this way, a long-range network is achieved, even in remote rural or other areas where other traditional connectivity alternatives are unable to reach. Rebecca Crowe, Managing Director of Sigfox Spain, points out that “we are delighted to have been able to help reunite this person with his family. In cases like this, every second counts“.
More info about Sigfox Spain https://www.sigfox.es/
More info about Invoxia https://www.invoxia.com/
About Sigfox
Sigfox is a world’s leading IoT (Internet of Things) communication service provider and 0G network pioneer. Sigfox offers a unique combination of ultra-low cost and ultra-low power solutions enabled by a single global network, owned and operated by 75 Sigfox Operators, enabling businesses to gain visibility and track their assets worldwide. With more than 19 million connected devices and 75 million messages sent a day, Sigfox helps its customers to extract data at the lowest cost of production and accelerate their digital transformation in key areas such as asset tracking and monitoring.
ISO 9001 certified and supported by a strong partner ecosystem, Sigfox was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Labège, France, with offices in Boston, Dallas, Dubai, Madrid, Paris, Sao Paulo, Singapore, and Tokyo.
