Immediately recognizable for Climate FieldView, the Climate Corp. is closely coupled with agribusiness. Which means that their research farms need reliable field communications that won’t slow them — or their extensive testing — down.
Before trying RealmFive, Climate Corp. had a complicated system of collecting in-field data: a plethora of vendors, some devices that required cellular connections, and some that logged data to in-field hard drives.
Atif Khan, the Senior Scientific Manager for Connected Systems and IoT, describes it like this: “It was five different ways things can go bad by five different technologies, along with five times the cost.”
Simplifying was necessary for another reason: getting data in time for helpful analysis. Khan said, “If you don’t have a uniform telemetry system, a farm manager doesn’t know what’s going on in the field. Waiting until the end of the season to get sensor data from the field isn’t good enough to be ready for next year’s planting.”
Put Reliability to the Test
So, Climate needed a simple connectivity solution that could provide near real-time sensing data. What would you do if you needed reliable connectivity not just for you, but for your customers as well?
Why not put different connectivity brands to the test?
Which is exactly what Khan did. And the winner was clear: “Over the 2018 crop growing season, we achieved a 98% data packet reliability to the cloud over hundreds of RealmFive devices. RealmFive has achieved a step-function improvement in data transmission distance and data delivery reliability over other telemetry brands.”
In the independent study, Climate Corp. found that RealmFive performed better than other telemetry providers in 5 key areas:
- Reliability
- Service
- Range
- Cost
- Ease of Use
Designed for Remote Environments
So RealmFive ag tech was proven to be reliable. But, even perfect data delivery is no good if you can’t solve the problems common to all remote areas: lack of line power and outlasting Mother Nature.
John McNichols, Telematics and Control Engineer at Climate Corp., explains, “For in-field sensing, devices have to withstand the elements 24/7 and keep working. RealmFive devices reliably generate data over the course of a long season without failing from power or ruggedization issues.”
By design, ag tech that uses batteries you can pick up from any store or solar power is easier to drop-in a remote area. By choosing rugged, built-for-the-field devices, Climate can focus on more important things, like data and research.
“Dirt Simple” Training
With a platform that’s engineered for simplicity, they spent little time training and troubleshooting. McNichols said, “I can train these guys on a single system that’s dirt simple. RealmFive stuff is pretty hands off.”
Khan added, “By putting everything under one umbrella, with one system, training becomes straightforward. Everyone is on the same page as far as how to deploy it from a communications perspective. From a scale perspective, it helps us immensely: from logistics to dollar savings to integration with different types of sensors.”
How could reliable connectivity help you and your growers? Find out on February 20th, with a webinar about how dealers directly benefit by choosing future-focused, field-proven ag tech. Sign up for the digital demonstration, Profitable In-Field IoT, here.
This content is brought to you by RealmFive.
RealmFive is changing the way customers interact with agricultural technology in areas including agronomy, inventory, irrigation, livestock, and machinery. Using highly improved long-range radio technology and easy-to-deploy devices RealmFive’s Connectivity Platform enables remote monitoring, control, and data-driven decision-making. The RealmFive Connection Platform is modular and flexible, allowing for simple third-party integration into the platform and a robust API to other digital farming platforms. With an expanding portfolio of applications including soil moisture, weather, irrigation monitoring, and state monitoring, RealmFive is bringing sensor-to-cloud solutions to agriculture.
