Fira has trusted Kaltiot’s solutions for tracking temperature and humidity since 2018. The collaboration started with a construction site pilot, from which it has successfully moved to an efficient service solution which covers Fira’s entire housing production.
Finnish construction and technology company Fira uses Kaltiot’s Smart Tracker sensors in all their projects to measure air temperature and humidity. Planning for a new site and monitoring ambient conditions on the site goes smoothly because the collaboration has been fine-tuned over the years. There is always something to improve, and as more experience is gained, Fira and Kaltiot find more optimal ways of working to achieve more reliable ambient conditions monitoring.
A custom service that works for every construction site
Fira has multiple projects or construction sites active at any given time. Each site has one or more buildings. Setting up a new construction site starts with defining the needs for the solution and service for that site. The process starts with Fira defining how many sensors are needed on that construction site. With this knowledge in hand, Kaltiot prepares the sensors, repeaters and gateways as needed.
The following illustration shows how a completely new set of sensors is set up on a construction site:
The sensors are moved to a new construction site when one is finished, which means it’s not necessary to buy all-new sensors for each construction project. Good organization helps manage the sensors across the different sites. It’s important to predict when sensors will be freed up from existing sites and keep track of which sensor sets are already in use. Sometimes sensors become freed up at different times and this can mix up the numbering and setup at a new site. Managing multiple sensor sets requires good planning to keep the sets together when transferring to a new construction site.
Today Fira’s own knowledge of Kaltiot’s devices and systems is so strong that Fira easily handles sensor installation and transfers. When sensors are transferred to a new construction site, Kaltiot handles the back end changes in the system and Fira handles the devices. Kaltiot manages the integrations and sensor assignment remotely while Fira has the knowledge and skill to set up the devices at the construction site.
A continuously adapting model
During four years Kaltiot’s and Fira’s collaboration has been fine-tuned to be continuously more functional and efficient.
Among other areas, the service model and solution have been imporved in these areas:
- Planning – Activity is predicted and planned according to what construction projects are coming and which ones are ending.
- Organization – An organized method of naming the devices and installing the devices makes it easier to find ambient conditions data and manage the devices.
- Signal – The signal is boosted with repeaters which ensure that data is forwarded from the sensors to the gateway. Repeaters send data either directly to the gateway or via additional repeaters. The number of gateways has also been optimized.
- Optimized energy usage – The gateways use even less electricity. They are also more reliable because of it.
- Reliable data – Correctly installed sensors produce more reliable data.
- Site-specific tracking– Fira can see a specific construction site’s ambient conditions and device functionality at a glance from their own reporting tool.
As the service has been developed, ambient conditions monitoring has become more reliable and new methods have been found to make new installations even more efficient. The humidity management solution and service solution around it have developed to precisely address the various needs of construction sites. As a result, construction is more efficient, energy-efficient, and cost-effective.
