Concluding an exciting evaluation effort, the panel of international technology jurors reviewing M2M Challenge’s top submitted solutions elected the five category winners and the Innovator of the Year, all of whom were celebrated at the official awards ceremony at this year’s Mobile World Congress.
The international experts had to select among a large number of cutting-edge solutions with the finalists of the M2M Challenge fully reflecting the great potential of the market.
Miguel Blockstrand, Head of Product Line Device Connections, Ericsson, states:
“Only our imagination sets the limits for what can be accomplished in M2M. We believe that `What if?` will often be answered by something that has to do with M2M. Therefore we find it inspiring to encourage the eco system and the creation of new ideas.”
The overall winner of the M2M Challenge innovation competition and Innovator of the Year is Limmex. The Switzerland-based company developed the first mobile phone based emergency watch allowing the wearer to call for help at the push of a button. The solution is an elegant Swiss watch with a built-in loudspeaker and microphone. The unique selling propositions of the emergency watch are improved personal security, usability and design. Jurors were convinced by the ease of use and the great potential for this to become a mass consumption product. It is a simple M2M solution that could save countless lives.
Jurors also returned winning verdicts for winners in all five categories Energy, Healthcare, Mobility, Security and Consumer Electronics & More are:
- Energy: tado° created the first intelligent, smartphone-based heating control system that adjusts automatically to the residents’ behavior.
- Healthcare: VibroTac by SENSODRIVE is a vibrotactile feedback system with high application potential in medical technology, industry and entertainment solutions.
- Mobility: The AnyCar smart entry with access management is an innovative multi-consumer service by Ericsson that facilitates car access, monitoring and usage from any mobile device.
- Security: Beverage Metrics presented the first complete beverage management solution to meet the industry’s biggest challenges – perpetual inventory management and inventory shrinkage.
- Consumer Electronics & More: QGate makes it possible to connect things from our everyday lives to the internet, manage and monitor them remotely with a smartphone via the QGate App.
Five runner ups were also selected for each of the categories.
- Energy: SIGFOX, the first and only cellular network operator fully dedicated to low-throughput communication for connected objects.
- Healthcare: Idezo provides a solution to optimize post-surgery recovery. A small force sensor is placed in a sock and the force signal is sent via wireless connection to an app on the smartphone.
- Mobility: “Magsense” by Mobilisis is an intelligent system that provides guidance to available parking spaces using magnetic sensors.
- Security: Mi5 Security’s “iDefigo” Service is a MobileFirst cloud-based surveillance management platform to communicate with cellular cameras that are self powered and that can be positioned anywhere.
- Consumer Electronics & More: Spree by Hothead Technologies is a fully integrated wearable biosensor that measures and reports body temperature, heart rate, pulse oximetry and motion through a single device that can be worn on the head, the upper arm or the wrist.
The individual category winners, the runners up and the overall winner presented their solutions to the audience of international industry and media representatives at the official awards ceremony during the Mobile World Congress on February 26th at the Ericsson booth. Selected out of more than 200 participants from all over the world, the finalists are in good position to take their ideas further. And the overall winner, the M2M Innovator of the Year, was awarded a cash prize of USD 5,000.
“With more than 200 participants from 44 countries the first round of the M2M Challenge innovation competition has already proven to be a great success,” states Gerhard Schedler, Head of M2M Centre of Competence, Swisscom.
“We are excited about the results and are already looking forward to the second round of the innovation competition.”
The M2M Challenge is sponsored by the Title Sponsors Swisscom and Ericsson as well as the sponsors Telit Wireless Solutions and VARTA Microbattery.
