Founded by serial inventor Felix Zhao, Cassia Networks is a creator of connectivity solutions that is on a mission to reimagine what Bluetooth can do. The company that created the world’s first Bluetooth router, Cassia is pushing the boundaries of wireless communication by bringing this ubiquitous consumer protocol into enterprise applications. The company’s products have found their way into everything from factory floor automation to remote patient monitoring, utilizing Bluetooth technology to do away with the need for bulky infrastructure or tethered mobile devices.
“Bluetooth started as a short-range, one-to-one communication protocol for consumer devices,” explains Zhao. “Our vision was to fulfill its original promise: to unite wireless communication not just for consumers, but also for enterprise IoT.”
Bluetooth’s ubiquity makes it attractive for IoT, but traditional implementations have fallen short in more complex environments. Designed for short distances and one-to-one pairing, standard Bluetooth devices struggle to support enterprise needs like persistent connectivity, long-range communication, and large-scale sensor networks.
“In places like hospitals, warehouses, and manufacturing plants, having someone walk around with a phone or tablet to collect data from sensors just doesn’t scale,” says Zhao. “That kind of setup introduces costs, inefficiencies, and risks that enterprises can’t afford.”
Range can be a major constraint. While most consumer Bluetooth operates at 10-30 meters, enterprise applications can cover 10 times that or beyond. Moreover, the traditional pairing model creates unnecessary friction when managing devices at scale.
A Cassia Bluetooth gateway is a smart, long-range router that acts more like a Wi-Fi access point than a consumer Bluetooth device. These gateways communicate with dozens of endpoints simultaneously, in real-time, and without requiring human intervention.
“Just like a Wi-Fi router sits in the background and handles traffic, our Bluetooth routers are designed to live on the wall and quietly manage everything,” says Zhao. “The user doesn’t have to do anything.”
One of Cassia’s key innovations is its ability to dramatically increase range and connection density without modifying end devices. Through advanced antenna design, increased receiver sensitivity, and proprietary firmware, Cassia’s gateways can receive signals from standard Bluetooth sensors located up to 1 kilometer away (in optimal conditions) without increasing their transmission power or reducing battery life.
“It’s not just about range,” Zhao emphasizes. “We also eliminated the one-to-one pairing limitation. One gateway can manage a fleet of sensors, stream data in real time, and even host application logic directly on the gateway itself.”
This flexibility is particularly powerful for edge computing scenarios, where customers can run their own applications on the gateway – reducing latency and infrastructure complexity.
To fully decouple Bluetooth sensors from smartphones, PCs, or other mobile gateways, Cassia needed a reliable and secure way to connect its Bluetooth routers to the cloud. That’s where Soracom came in.
With Soracom, Cassia gateways can communicate over a multicarrier cellular network, avoiding the need to rely on local IT teams, Wi-Fi infrastructure, or on-site connectivity.
“Soracom allows us to deploy anywhere – whether it’s a hospital in a city or a remote agricultural facility,” says Zhao. “Customers don’t have to worry about configuring a network or opening firewall ports. Everything just works.”
Soracom’s secure, encrypted tunnels provide a reliable and scalable pathway from Cassia’s gateways to cloud services, enabling remote device management, firmware updates, and data aggregation at scale.
“It’s more than just connectivity,” adds Zhao. “It’s peace of mind for our customers.”
Cassia Networks is changing the conversation around Bluetooth. By transforming it into a long-range, multi-device, enterprise-ready communication protocol, Cassia has unlocked a new level of flexibility, affordability, and scalability for IoT deployments. Its gateways are replacing fragile mobile-device pairings with robust, cloud-connected infrastructure.
And with Soracom providing the secure, reliable cellular backbone, Cassia can deploy solutions faster, anywhere in the world, with minimal IT overhead.
“Bluetooth is no longer just for headphones,” says Zhao. “It’s the foundation for the next generation of enterprise IoT.”
Since 2006, CO2Meter has grown to become one of the most trusted and reliable leaders in the gas detection industry. The company’s founders combined proven technical expertise and trusted sales and management experience in both the gas detection field for mining as well as photonics, and have only grown more “sense” since then.
In 2019, Travis Lenander, a successful business professional with Fortune 500 companies, purchased the business and became CEO. With the leadership change came a new focus on product diversification, sales penetration, brand recognition, and international development. Now, with two decades of extensive industry expertise, it is no surprise that the company continues to grow at a rapid pace.
Despite what its name may suggest, CO2Meter’s technologies track and monitor more than just carbon dioxide, with sensors that cover oxygen, carbon monoxide, ammonia, methane, nitrogen, argon, and other gases. They also offer fixed-gas safety systems, gas data loggers, and accessories that help make that data accessible and actionable.
It is no surprise, then, that CO2Meter serves a vast array of business types and organizations, with its customers including those found in restaurants and food, breweries and wineries, indoor agriculture, scientific and medical, industrial safety, and welding applications – to name a few.
With such a versatile solution covering countless industries and applications, CO2Meter required a robust and adaptive backend. That is what led the company to AWS, whose nearly universal accessibility and broad potential allowed the company an easy and secure means of connecting their devices to cloud applications and other devices.
Yet even though AWS is the most prominent cloud platform on the market, not every device is designed to integrate with the service easily. Managing software and certificates for such a large fleet – particularly with most deployed devices being in the possession of end-users can be complicated – and that complexity only grows with each new customer.
The complexity does not end at the backend either, as a global operation involving connected devices may also run into some difficulties when it comes to international pricing structures. As such, CO2Meter needed a connectivity provider that not only covered their operational area but helped simplify the integration process and cut through the red tape of international pricing, as well.
“With its ease of use, fantastic support, and competitive price structure, Soracom was an easy choice for us. It has significantly reduced the overhead in our data transmission thanks to the backend tools available, made onboarding of new devices completely seamless, and required no software changes other than updating the endpoint.”
This search is what led them to Soracom, a provider of international IoT connectivity that was also built on an AWS infrastructure. Yet what truly sets Soracom apart from other MVNOs is its suite of backend tools that help secure and provision connected devices at a scale that works for a business as big as CO2Meter.
Key to this functionality is Soracom’s Beam and Krypton services – TLS encryption proxy and device provisioning services that provide both secure connectivity and device management with direct integration to AWS IoT Core. CO2Meter further deploys the data management tool Soracom Harvest to help monitor and track usage down to the specific SIM, a factor that has proven essential to the success of development and data management for their prototype devices.
Combine this with Soracom’s competitive pricing and single-rate, pay-as-you-go cost structure, and CO2Meter found a connectivity partner that has helped it scale its operation into what it is today.
“Coming from another IoT partner, the backend tools and integration with our AWS environment from Soracom is simply second to none,” said Robert Miller, CO2Meter’s Vice President of Engineering. “Where others offer SIM and Usage tools as well as routing, Soracom offers an entire platform meant to make the integration of any cellular-based project into AWS as easy as we could possibly imagine. All while still offering great rates and support with our preferred carriers, as well as global support.”
Soracom’s tools and services have helped CO2Meter expand to a global – even interstellar – operation. With Soracom’s data management controls and efficient setup, CO2Meter has seen data usage for its devices dip by around 30%, resulting in significant cost savings. Meanwhile, using the Soracom SIM and device authentication service (Krypton) to automate the device provisioning process, the setup time for each device has been reduced from about 5 minutes to less than one.
These additions have allowed CO2Meter to introduce new devices, expand its operations, and emerge as a global leader in sensor technologies. The company hopes to continue this spirit of innovation, saying that customers should expect more integration of their products and improved IoT features designed to expand the potential uses of their devices.
hnology company offering a suite of compact Internet of Things (IoT) devices that monitor real-time electricity usage for residential, commercial, and industrial buildings.
Their solution is designed to enhance users’ energy efficiency, promote net-zero strategies, and cut operational costs – all integral aspects of the company’s overarching business strategy.
Through a collaboration with Thinxtra, the exclusive provider of Soracom’s connectivity services in Australia, Wattwatchers has introduced a dynamic and scalable energy monitoring system that reinforces sustainability initiatives and drives cost reductions in the face of the country’s ongoing Net Zero initiatives.
When it came time to connect its fleet of smart devices to the internet, Wattwatchers initially relied upon conventional SIM cards to access cellular connectivity over 4G. Yet between issues with international coverage, the challenges associated with wrangling local characters, and an ornate testing process, this method would quickly prove costly and complex.
This challenge is what ultimately led Wattwatchers to Soracom and Thinxtra, a Massive IoT solution that provides the company’s customers with flexible coverage, streamlined operational management, and transparent insights through comprehensive data analytics.
With access to a wide range of cellular networks throughout Australia – including Optus and Telstra, among others, all via a single SIM card – as well as automatic failover to ensure consistent uptime, Soracom’s IoT connectivity has enabled Wattwatchers’ devices to measure energy usage securely and reliably.
Their devices can be easily installed and activated, providing users with the data they need to make better organizational and foundational decisions as it pertains to energy consumption and reducing implementation time and ongoing management.
For Mark Dunn, CEO of Wattwatchers, the strategic long-term benefits of Soracom’s IoT solution cannot be undersold. The connectivity management platform provides Wattwatchers with fingertip control over their deployed devices, enabling rapid global scalability to meet the growing demand for simple yet comprehensive energy consumption monitoring aligned with sustainability strategies.
Given that electricity generation is currently the single largest source of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, managing it at the grid edge is crucial for the country’s Net Zero initiatives.
Digitalization and real-time data become pivotal in tracking, analyzing, reporting, and automating control of energy resources, emphasizing the critical role of solutions like Wattwatchers in achieving decarbonization, energy efficiency, electrification, and decentralized renewables optimization.
Soracom’s cellular solutions support Wattwatchers and its customers by ensuring secure and reliable connectivity and data transmission, outperforming alternatives like cable communications or Wi-Fi, particularly in commercial and industrial settings.
The collaboration enables real-time data-driven decision-making that is essential for the complex optimization of an organization’s energy usage, cost allocation, and resource management.
For companies facing mandated sub-metering requirements and external scrutiny, the combination of Wattwatchers’ devices and Soracom’s connectivity can help validate an organization’s sustainability initiatives, supporting progress towards net zero emissions targets.
The advantages of Soracom’s cellular solutions unlock unprecedented insights, making it the ideal choice for navigating the complexities of modern energy management.