IoT sensor management: How sensor insights can help simplify your complex IoT tasks

The Internet of Things (IoT) revolution has opened the door to tremendous opportunity, making it possible to connect virtually anything to your network and manage it remotely with an IoT sensor.

However managing an IoT sensor network can present major challenges—especially monitoring and managing the massive IoT infrastructures that businesses are building. IoT sensor networks may include thousands of devices spread across a wide geographic area, making it difficult to connect and track all of them effectively and reliably.

To manage IoT sensors at this scale, businesses need an efficient, centralized platform that allows them to track the status of all of their devices, manage sensor connectivity, stream device data to external services and enforce security policies across multiple IoT protocols. Verizon Sensor Insights is designed to do just that. This IoT infrastructure solution streamlines all core aspects of IoT sensor and gateway activation, onboarding and management. Sensor Insights helps businesses take full advantage of the IoT without letting IoT infrastructure become the weakest link within their technology estates.

Keep reading for a detailed look at the challenges that Sensor Insights addresses and how it helps businesses take charge of their IoT landscapes.

What is an IoT sensor?

IoT sensors are network-connected devices that collect data from the physical environment. They can serve a variety of purposes and use cases, such as monitoring energy usage within utility company infrastructure, tracking the movement of items within a factory, monitoring temperature within buildings and analyzing soil characteristics on farms, to name just a few.

Because IoT sensors can automatically collect diverse types of data from across a wide area, they play an increasingly central role in helping businesses operate efficiently and at scale. IoT sensors help automate business operations, enable near real-time decision-making and provide deep visibility into the various assets and processes that power organizations.

The challenges of IoT infrastructure management

IoT infrastructures, of which IoT sensors are a part, present a variety of monitoring and management challenges, including the following:

Administración de energía

Many IoT sensors are not connected to a traditional power source; instead, they rely on batteries or solar power to run. This means that businesses must continuously track the power status of devices to determine whether any sensors are at risk of shutting down due to lack of power.

Actualizaciones de software

Like most IT devices, an IoT sensor may require periodic software updates to fix bugs or add features. But because the IoT devices are typically spread across a wide area, installing updates manually may not be feasible. Organizations would benefit from an automated, centralized way to "push" updates to devices.

Connectivity status

IoT devices are only as useful as the network that allows them to connect to other devices and services. When IoT network failures or performance issues arise—which is not uncommon given that IoT sensors sometimes exist in remote locations with limited network reliability—the IoT devices will not perform their required tasks.

Data streaming

To enable near real-time decision-making, IoT devices must be capable of streaming data to applications and services that can analyze and react to it. Problems with a device—such as lower power resources or software bugs—can delay or prevent data movement, undercutting the value of using connected IoT devices to power business operations.

These challenges can be exacerbated by the sheer scale of many enterprise IoT networks. While the number of IoT devices within a single IoT infrastructure can vary widely, larger networks may include tens or hundreds of thousands of individual IoT sensors. With so many devices to track and manage, a manual or ad hoc approach to IoT sensor monitoring becomes extremely difficult or even impossible.

Streamline connected IoT device management with Sensor Insights

Verizon Sensor Insights comes in when solving IoT management challenges like these. Sensor Insights is an IoT solution created to deploy and manage complex IoT infrastructure, including sensors, IoT gateways (which serve as connection points for multiple devices) and network connectivity.

Key Sensor Insights features include:

• Continuous tracking of the connectivity, power and health status of all sensors within your IoT infrastructure.
• Near real-time alerts that notify your team of issues like connectivity disruptions, out-of-date software or low sensor power.
• Built-in monitoring and alerting rules that are available out-of-the-box, with the option to customize rules as desired.
• Data visualizations to help track and analyze the status of IoT sensors and networks.
• Support for multiple IoT protocols, including LoRaWAN and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE).

These capabilities can translate into a variety of business benefits. In addition to improving IoT infrastructure uptime and availability and helping to extend sensor lifetime through efficient power management, Sensor Insights reduces payroll costs by decreasing the staff resources required to monitor and manage IoT infrastructure. It also assists with IoT solution design, procurement and configuration, which can help accelerate the ability for businesses to grow IoT infrastructure over time.

Sensor Insights use cases

As an industry-agnostic solution that supports virtually all types of IoT devices and major protocols, Sensor Insights addresses a wide variety of use cases. Key examples include:

• Improving the reliability of Internet-connected devices used for smoke or carbon monoxide detection.
• Helping businesses optimize the reliability and energy efficiency of HVAC systems by managing sensors that support HVAC efficiency monitoring.
• Supporting sensor-based pipeline monitoring as a means of helping to protect critical infrastructure.
• Streamlining water quality monitoring based on IoT sensors.

These are just a few examples of how Sensor Insights can help businesses maximize the value of their IoT investments. Learn more about how solutions like Sensor Insights improve the efficiency and reliability of modern digital businesses.

The author of this content is a paid contributor for Verizon.