Digital Matter Commits to 100,000 Sigfox Connections to Provide Low Cost, Long Battery Life Asset Trackers to the Global Market
Sydney, Australia – March 1st 2017 – Digital Matter, a leader in telematics in Australia and South Africa for the past nine years, has partnered with Thinxtra, the exclusive Sigfox Operator for Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong, to address the market demand for low cost, long battery life, ruggedised GPS tracking using the Sigfox technology.
With Thinxtra already covering over 70% of the Australian population with the Sigfox IoT network, and able to easily extend this coverage into regional areas to address mining and agriculture via the low-cost “Coverage as a Service” offering, it became obvious to Digital Matter that a GPS tracker utilising this network would provide great benefits to their customers.
“When we saw the Sigfox value proposition, it was clear to us that this was just what we had been waiting for to enable mass deployment of our tracking solutions – with low cost hardware and connectivity, and long battery life” said Ken Everett, Founder and CEO of Digital Matter.
“We knew we had to take an active role in developing our ecosystem, and that industrial asset tracking is a key product not only for introducing Sigfox to the ANZ market, but also to kick-start our global sales” said Frankie Alson, VP Product at Thinxtra. “This is the first of many products which Thinxtra and its partners will release to the global market, addressing the needs of the new Sigfox countries in APAC and LATAM”.
“Thinxtra has been extremely effective at developing partnerships within their ecosystem”, said Richard Oliver, Sigfox Country Director in Australia and New Zealand. “The partnership with Digital Matter is testament to this, it further demonstrates that Thinxtra is delivering on global demand for low cost, low power GPS tracking today and this is a huge win for industrial tracking and supply chain industries.”
The GPS tracker ‘Oyster‘ is now commercial at a price point of under $100 AU with 5 years of battery life and an IP67 rated housing. It can either be managed through the Telematics.guru platform or interfaced with customers’ cloud platform via a simple API from the Sigfox back-end.
Digital Matter have pre-orders locally for 10,000 units and targeting 100,000 units in 2017. As part of the agreement, Digital Matter signed up for 100K connections which will allow their customers to access the Sigfox low cost network globally. Thanks to the Sigfox network and Thinxtra’s support, Digital Matter have received inquiries from USA, Europe and South America, on top of the local requirements in Australia & New Zealand from major customers.
About Digital Matter
Digital Matter is a technology company that designs and develops embedded electronic devices – and the software that makes them work and communicate. The devices range from mobile GPS devices communicating on the LPWAN, GSM and satellite networks, through to ‘black box’ electronics specific to customers’ requirements. Their engineering skills, research and development, and 9 years’ experience make Digital Matter the ideal partner to design, develop and deploy GPS technology solutions.
www.digitalmatter.com
About Thinxtra
Thinxtra is an Internet of Things (IoT) company founded by IoT experts who share the same passion and expertise: connecting things to improve business processes. Thinxtra is backed by NZX-listed high-tech company Rakon Limited, which has a history of innovation in communications technology going back some 50 years. Thinxtra is rolling out the first nationwide IoT network in Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong, based on Sigfox LPWAN (Low Power Wide Area Network) technology. This is the missing link – connectivity – between things and platforms. The network already covers 70% of Australian population and is well on track to cover 95% of the ANZ population by end of 2017.
Thinxtra is also building a full eco-system of IoT solutions and services to increase productivity, accelerate decision making, improve quality of service or simply solve problems in an economic and connected manner.
