It feels obvious but is easy to forget: when you’re a growing company developing a new technology, make sure you’re creating a product customers need. The potential of the technologies that fall under the umbrella term “the Internet of Things” is so vast, it’s easy to get caught up in theory of it all, losing sight of your original mission– making your customers’ lives and work easier and more productive. It’s here that customer involvement in your product roadmap becomes crucial.

Agriculture leads smart sensing innovation

Smart sensing technology is by nature applicable to any industry. From manufacturing to shipping, retail to restaurants, museums to office spaces, any organization can benefit from measuring its physical space and unlocking insights into how to make the most of its resources and assets. The combinations of metrics gathered might differ slightly, but the approach to measuring real-world environments remains the same. We’ve worked with innovative companies across sectors, but it’s clear: agriculture is at the front lines of smart sensing innovation, with tangible results ranging from energy and water savings to optimised crop production and reduction of mold, rot and moisture-borne diseases. Adoption of smart sensing technology is expanding globally, and we’re proud to have 30MHz sensors capturing data in North America, Africa and across Europe. But it’s no surprise that the quickest adoption has been in our own backyard (the Dutch agricultural market). National Geographic recently spotlighted the Netherlands as a leader in agricultural innovation and an example of what the future of farming can look like. We’re proud to have some of our customers featured.

Customer needs are the backbone of our product

At 30MHz, though we learn from every customer and every farm visit, we’re not agricultural experts ( we do, however, know a thing or two about sensing and cloud computing). When developing products from agriculture, we look to our customers to help us understand the challenges that arise when doing what they do best. Customer demand has set our product roadmap and driven how we prioritize sensor development. After all, it’s all about creating the products our customers want to use. We developed our counting sensor with Pop Vriend Seeds, designed our pointed temperature sensor with Moors Pepper Farm, and we’re now pleased to announce world-leading agricultural experts Wageningen University as advisors (and customers). The future of farming is already here, and it doesn’t have to be complicated.