If we accept the planet faces an existential crisis in terms of how energy is generated and consumed, and we accept the business adage (sales gambit) that you can’t manage what you can’t measure, then smart meters are arguably the single most important technology out there. This is hyperbole, of course; but you get the point. If society is in a race against time to change and manage the energy mix, and save itself from a climate apocalypse, then it needs the tools to mark its progress. The humble smart meter is the tool to save us all – so long as politicians and corporations are ambitious, brave, and correct with the data insights that flow out of it.
But how did we get here? And where is here, anyway? What has changed? Because meters have been designated as ‘smart’ for two decades already? So why are we writing about them in late 2023 when there appears to be much zingier IoT gadgetry to discuss – such as machine vision and augmented reality, or intelligent transport systems and lights-out factories (anyone?). The answer to this last question is that the gargantuan IoT sector basically splits into two parts – asset monitoring and asset tracking – and metering, one way or another, covers all of this first discipline.
CyanConnode Holdings plc (LON:CYAN) is a world leader in the design and development of Narrowband RF mesh networks that enable Omni Internet of Things (IoT) communications.
