ColdChase creates customized IoT solutions designed to fit the needs of an evolving roster of customers. The company operates three unique brands that address the needs of cold chain operations (ColdChase), shipment and asset tracking (AssetChase), and a suite of products focused on improving the passenger experience at airports (PaXChase).
Over the years, the company has helped to resolve countless tracking and monitoring challenges across the supply chain – finding innovative ways to utilize temperature, pressure, and GPS sensors, among other specialized devices, to create unique solutions to individual company issues.
“Every client is different in what they require,” said Rosy Amlani, CPA, the CEO of ColdChase. “So every sensor we sell is customized for every client, which is why our team has to closely interact with the customer to really understand what they need.”
Because ColdChase has a pedigree of designing and manufacturing for other companies, it moved the manufacture of its custom devices in-house, where its engineering staff – representing specialties that range from electrical to simulation to firmware engineering – can craft solutions that perfectly address customer concerns on-site.
At the heart of these solutions is a roster of base devices that can be augmented and tweaked to better suit each application’s needs. These can range from Bluetooth low-energy devices for monitoring applications to cellular sensors ideal for long-distance tracking, with each being augmented to include different sensors and modules as needed. These devices can then be outfitted with GPS, pressure, temperature, light sensors, or other modifications.
“The fact that we have engineers on staff that were part of the company that did a lot of the product development allows us to craft perfectly tailored solutions for our customers,” said Amlani. “That unique understanding of how you put sensors together to create different effects helps make sure that we’re meeting all customer requirements.”
Naturally, when dealing with applications such as airports, cold chain transit, or asset tracking, these devices need to be versatile enough to meet a lot of regulatory, spacing, and power demands. As such, ColdChase sought a connectivity partner that could not only reliably connect their devices wherever they need to deploy but could offer them the versatility to design rugged and reliable devices that can withstand the potentially harsh conditions that abound in asset tracking and cold chain applications.
The ColdChase team evaluated at least a dozen service providers but struggled to find one that could meet the technical needs of their devices—specifically offering CatM1 and NB-IoT connectivity—and provide reliable coverage across the globe. Eventually, the team found Soracom, which not only met all of these needs but could also provide them with low-profile eSIMs for enhanced durability and lower-profile construction.
“We picked Soracom because it hit all those buttons,” said Amlani. “Not only do we get reliable service, we can get it all in eSIM form, which is very important for us. Since we do our own manufacturing, we prefer to put eSIMs on our boards.”
Because eSIMs are soldered directly onto a device’s System on Chip (SoC), their low profile allows manufacturers to design more compact devices. This construction also makes the SIMs more tamper-proof and resistant to vibration—factors important to applications that involve a lot of moving pieces.
In addition, embedding the eSIM into a device simplifies the connectivity process for the end user, removing a lot of the complexities of managing connections for fleets of mobile devices, many of which cross national borders in transit.
“We didn’t want customers trying to figure out what provider to go with depending on what country that we’re going to,” said Amlani. “So this way, the fact that Soracom has coverage in 150 countries or more, we were able to give that to our customers.”
ColdChase also highlights the benefits of Soracom’s User Console in managing deployed devices. The console can be used to monitor the connectivity status of all devices in a deployment.
ColdChase’s solutions have found their way into a number of different applications across the supply chain, providing reliable, actionable data that has helped shape the way business is done. One example shared by Amlani saw ColdChase’s sensors helping to avert a loss of more than $100k worth of meat from spoiling when extreme temperatures caused a commercial freezer to fail.
By partnering with Soracom, ColdChase’s customized solutions have enabled scores of customers to improve the efficiency of their operations and better manage their products. With reliable connectivity and the added security of the embedded eSIM, ColdChase is able to create powerful tools for all stages of the supply chain.
Amlani believes the company’s success comes from its customer-centric view, which provides solutions to issues that aren’t addressed in other technologies. “We focus on providing value to customers that realize how important having a safe, reliable, and functional piece of custom equipment is.”By partnering with a connectivity provider like Soracom, ColdChase can confidently count on reliable connectivity for their end customers.
UK-based Sollatek is a global leader in commercial refrigeration control, delivering cutting-edge hardware and IoT management solutions for the world’s top beverage companies and other refrigerated consumables. The company offers a range of solutions focused on power management, asset tracking, monitoring and optimization, and also provides the necessary data and operational insight to enable businesses to thrive.
Chief among these offerings is a unique suite of commercial refrigeration solutions designed to monitor and control the temperature, energy usage, and voltage stability of everything from beverage coolers and refrigerators to display cabinets and freezers. Additionally, the solution provides real-time cooler location tracking, can mark cooler sales based on door openings, monitor cooler misuse, and remotely control cooling system functionality.
The benefits of a properly maintained refrigeration system (safeguarding product quality, preventing spoilage, meeting regulatory requirements, etc.) are critical for day-to-day business, so ensuring that your equipment is working smoothly and efficiently is essential for modern business.
Commercial refrigeration is a highly energy-intensive process, with one estimate saying that a commercial refrigerator can use up to 17,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity over its lifetime. A separate survey from the Energy Information Administration found that refrigeration systems accounted for 14 percent of the 1.35 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity produced by the commercial sector in 2017. Coca Cola bottlers alone have over 10 million beverage coolers deployed in the field and purchase at least another million per annum.
This makes refrigeration systems a major factor in global energy usage, as well as a potentially costly marker on a customer’s bottom line. Monitoring refrigeration deployments for warming trends, power surges, and other events can do more than maintain stock and reduce spoilage; it can enable preventative maintenance to help preserve the longevity of mission-critical equipment in the field.
Furthermore, everything from the location of the cooler, to the cooler type, to the ideal cooling parameter settings, sales efficiency, and cooler operations can best be achieved when there is regular information flow from coolers deployed in the field to a system that can analyze the data and guide business owners to take the right decisions.
Sollatek offers a number of devices designed to help customers remotely manage and control their refrigeration operations. The company offers various Always On temperature controllers that can be mounted to equipment or simply adhered for display, with features that promote energy efficiency to help keep operations running smoothly. Other products include voltage stabilizers, and power controls, as well as ancillary equipment designed to improve and extend the features of Sollatek’s line.
All of Sollatek’s temperature controllers come with built-in or external connectivity options that allow customers to keep close tabs on any commercial refrigerators and beverage coolers they have deployed. This connectivity is provided by Soracom, which allows each and every device to access top-tier cellular connectivity across multiple connectivity technologies and carriers in 170 coun
Many of the world’s largest beverage producers have already discovered the power of Sollatek’s Always On solution, with more than a million coolers and freezers deployed with Sollatek technology worldwide.
Monitoring and management systems for refrigeration equipment require near-constant data uploads to be viable, and the challenge is only exacerbated when operating across international borders. Scaling an operation that spans multiple countries and continents presents myriad challenges. No single carrier can ensure devices will stay connected across the globe, meaning that deploying refrigeration solutions in disparate parts of the world might involve multiple vendors, bills, and relationships to manage.
This is what makes Soracom a natural connectivity provider to Sollatek. Soracom partners with many of the biggest MNOs in the world, ensuring strong, reliable connectivity virtually wherever it is needed. Considering Sollatek’s customers include some of the largest names in the beverage world, the ability to support deployments in multiple countries is a must. Beyond that, Soracom’s network is packed with redundancies and automatic failover, which means that devices have the best chance of staying connected, even if a customer’s preferred network goes down.
With refrigeration deployments only growing in complexity, the combination of Sollatek’s monitoring technology and Soracom’s best-in-class connectivity solution provides customers with the perfect solution to protect their investments.
Founded as the national Sigfox operator for Austria, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland, HELIOT Group delivers reliable low-power, wide-area (LPWA) connectivity through a distributed network of over 800 base stations. Their infrastructure is designed to support the rapidly growing demand for IoT applications, where small sensors and devices need to communicate efficiently and at scale.
Sigfox connectivity offers a unique balance of extremely low energy consumption, long transmission range, and low cost. Devices can transmit small data packets across distances of up to 10km in cities and up to 50km in rural regions. This makes Sigfox an ideal choice for use cases like asset tracking, smart building monitoring, and environmental sensing, applications that don’t require high bandwidth but benefit from wide-area coverage and years-long device battery life.
Heliot’s mission is to make IoT accessible and sustainable. By providing a strong backbone for Sigfox-based solutions, they help innovators, enterprises, and municipalities bring projects to life, whether it’s monitoring air quality in urban areas, tracking assets across borders, or supporting smart agriculture in rural communities.
Sigfox already connects more than 10 million devices across 65 countries, proving its value as a global IoT standard. But for a regional operator like HELIOT, ensuring service quality at scale presents unique challenges.
One of the most significant issues is Europe’s fragmented telecom market. Many IoT projects require multi-national coverage, yet establishing individual agreements with separate carriers in each country adds unnecessary complexity and cost. For customers, this can translate into deployment delays, administrative hurdles, and uncertainty around reliability.
Heliot also recognized the risk of relying solely on a single type of connectivity. A network outage, even a short one, could disrupt mission-critical applications, lead to lost data, and in some cases raise safety or compliance concerns. The challenge was clear: design a network with world-class reliability while keeping service affordable and straightforward for customers.
Heliot engineered its Sigfox network to include multiple connectivity options at every base station. By supporting several wireless operators simultaneously, the network creates a built-in failover system that ensures service continuity. If one carrier experiences downtime, traffic can automatically switch to another, maintaining seamless coverage for end users.
This approach not only reduces the risk of service interruptions but also strengthens Heliot’s ability to meet demanding service-level expectations. Customers deploying IoT devices for asset tracking, security monitoring, or industrial control can rely on consistent, resilient connectivity without having to manage multiple operator agreements themselves.
To make this possible, Heliot needed a back-end cellular connectivity solution capable of delivering secure, reliable coverage across all three countries they serve. That solution also needed to integrate cost-effectively into their existing service model, which prioritizes efficiency and scalability.
Heliot’s extensive experience working with wireless providers made the advantages of Soracom immediately clear. Soracom’s global, multi-carrier coverage gave HELIOT a simple way to unify connectivity across Austria, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland, reducing administrative overhead while enhancing resilience.
Rapid deployment was another critical factor. Soracom’s console and APIs allow Heliot to provision devices instantly, monitor connections in real time, and manage hundreds of SIMs with full transparency and control. For a growing network already spanning more than 225 base stations, these capabilities are essential to delivering best-in-class service.
Perhaps most importantly, Soracom’s pay-as-you-go model aligns perfectly with HELIOT’s business case. Since cellular is used primarily as a failover resource in their architecture, costs are incurred only when needed, eliminating waste while preserving reliability. Together, these advantages make Soracom a trusted partner in building Europe’s most reliable Sigfox network.
Over the next two years, HELIOT Group plans to expand Sigfox availability to cover 85% of the population across Austria, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland. This expansion will extend the benefits of affordable, low-power IoT connectivity to more industries, communities, and citizens across the region.
At the same time, Heliot is looking outward. With global demand for Sigfox IoT solutions continuing to rise, the company is exploring opportunities to extend its model into new markets. By combining Sigfox’s proven low-power capabilities with Soracom’s global cellular integration, HELIOT aims to deliver scalable IoT connectivity solutions across borders.
Ultimately, Helio’s vision is to provide the foundation for a smarter, more connected world – helping innovators bring IoT projects to life with reliability, flexibility, and cost-efficiency at scale.
Meiko Equipment specializes in refrigeration, air conditioning, and automatic control systems used across industries like supermarkets, agriculture, and fisheries. Because this equipment is critical to business operations, Meiko traditionally performed maintenance within weeks of delivery, ensuring performance before handing systems off to clients.
While this model worked, it wasn’t optimized for long-term efficiency. Maintenance schedules were fixed rather than based on real-time equipment performance, meaning potential issues were often discovered too late. Small businesses in particular lacked access to predictive monitoring, which was typically limited to larger enterprises able to afford expensive remote systems.
Meiko wanted to change this dynamic by creating a cost-effective way to monitor refrigeration and HVAC equipment remotely. Their goal was to empower even small and mid-sized businesses with the same predictive maintenance capabilities that larger competitors had already adopted.
To make predictive maintenance possible, Meiko needed to track variables like temperature, humidity, and pressure within refrigeration and air conditioning systems. By analyzing these values in the cloud, they could detect early warning signs of failure and trigger alerts for preventive action.
The team already had experience using BI tools and knew they wanted a dashboard to display findings. What they lacked was a reliable and secure way to collect data from the equipment in the first place. Connectivity quickly became a major challenge. WiFi might have worked in some customer environments, but sharing networks with store staff or customers introduced security risks that made it unsuitable for sensitive industrial data.
Beyond connectivity, Meiko also needed to solve for data compatibility. Many of their sensors relied on analog signals like 4–20 mA outputs, which would need to be converted into a digital format before they could be transmitted and analyzed over the Internet.
Meiko found a solution by combining their expertise with Soracom’s IoT platform. Using the Grove IoT Starter Kit, complete with microcomputer, sensors, and a cellular connectivity module, they built a prototype capable of capturing sensor data directly from HVAC and refrigeration units.
Once collected, the data was transmitted securely to the cloud via Soracom Air. From there, Soracom Harvest provided simple data storage and visualization, eliminating the need to maintain separate servers or databases. This streamlined approach allowed Meiko to quickly move from prototype to production without a heavy infrastructure investment.
To make the system accessible to customers, Meiko added Soracom Lagoon, which transformed Harvest data into shareable dashboards. By logging into a web console, customers could see real-time performance data from their equipment, gaining transparency and peace of mind while giving Meiko the ability to act on anomalies proactively.
For Meiko, Soracom offered a way to deliver predictive maintenance as a practical service, not just an enterprise luxury. By using Soracom Air for connectivity, they avoided the risks of relying on shared WiFi networks while maintaining control over security and reliability. Deployment was fast and cost-effective, making the solution viable for smaller businesses.
The integrated services of Soracom Harvest and Soracom Lagoon further simplified operations. Harvest eliminated the need for dedicated servers, while Lagoon gave Meiko an easy way to share dashboards directly with customers. This not only reduced IT complexity but also enhanced customer engagement by making monitoring data easily accessible.
Altogether, Soracom provided the connectivity, scalability, and security that Meiko needed to expand its service model. What started as a prototype quickly became a foundation for delivering ongoing value to clients of all sizes.
Meiko sees connected services as a critical way to respond faster to customer needs. With IoT monitoring in place, their maintenance teams can identify issues as they arise, rather than waiting for equipment failures to trigger service calls. This reduces downtime for customers while strengthening Meiko’s role as a proactive partner.
Over time, Meiko plans to expand the system’s reach by supporting more equipment models and additional communication protocols. While the initial rollout focused on analog 4–20 mA sensor outputs, future versions will include Modbus RTU with RS-485 interfaces, broadening the range of devices that can be monitored.
By extending predictive maintenance to more customers, Meiko is helping small and medium-sized businesses reduce costs, improve reliability, and access insights once reserved for larger enterprises. With Soracom as a backbone, they are positioned to scale their monitoring services efficiently and securely.