Water is a finite resource that’s finally getting the global attention it deserves. It remains one of the United Nations’ top sustainability goals and is consistently a focus of environmental discussions and focus groups. And yet there are often leaks and water pipe breakages that impact on water supply and water levels. Avoidable, preventable leaks that come about due to weak infrastructure and lack of insight into maintaining that infrastructure sustainably.
There are three core pillars currently dominating the conversation in the plumbing industry – the access to technology, the need to change societal behaviour, and the critical water situation. Plumbers have become key in driving water sustainability goals, leveraging new business models, and helping deploy smart water solutions, powered by the Internet of Things (IoT), to the South African market.
Many plumbers are being left behind… an example is I just used plain e-mail and messaging to contact plumbers for a quote and one only responded a week later as "he does not often check e-mail". Needless to say, I’d already contracted the first plumber to respond.
But IoT has a big role to play in the detection of problems as well as reporting on usage to change usage habits. Often just measuring and reporting starts to change usage patterns for the better. In Cape Town, we saw a number of smart water meter apps appearing during our drought and I see there is a blanket cover radio network across Cape Town just for IoT device connectivity.
See https://businesstech.co.za/news/industry-news/346388/plumbing-is-the-glamorous-new-iot-frontier/
#environment #drought #iot
#^Plumbing is the glamorous new IoT frontier
Contrary to popular belief, plumbing is the glamorous new technology frontier.