Facility managers face constant pressure to keep properties clean, safe, and welcoming while also optimizing labor costs and supply use. Traditional custodial schedules often rely on fixed routines rather than real-time needs, which can waste resources and overlook high-traffic areas.
Zan Compute recognized an opportunity to transform this process. By combining IoT sensors with AI, they deliver real-time insight into facility conditions, ensuring cleaning crews know exactly when and where their attention is needed.
“Occupants benefit because they get a much better experience in the property,” says Zan Compute CEO, Sridharan Mani.
Zan Compute deploys a network of smart sensors that continuously monitor building usage and conditions. These sensors feed data into a powerful AI backend that predicts cleaning needs, optimizes labor schedules, and reduces waste in supplies.
But this intelligence depends on reliable, secure connectivity. Wi-Fi onboarding often poses problems with reliability, security, and IT oversight. To solve this, Zan Compute’s sensors connect to gateways that transmit data over cellular networks, powered by Soracom.
Soracom’s IoT platform provides:
Beyond affordable IoT connectivity, Soracom delivers the management tools Zan Compute needs to operate globally at scale. The built-in console and APIs give the team full visibility across devices, while advanced services like Soracom Peek add new diagnostic capabilities without additional infrastructure.
For Zan Compute, this combination means less time managing connectivity and more time improving their AI-powered platform.
Today, Zan Compute helps facility managers optimize labor, reduce supply costs, and improve building hygiene—at a time when health and safety have never been more important.
“We believe that, post-COVID, demand for our solution is going to grow multi-fold,” says Sridharan. “We see significant growth potential in the coming year.”
From office buildings to public spaces, Zan Compute is leading the way toward smarter, safer, and more sustainable custodial operations. For property owners, that means lower costs and improved outcomes. For everyone else, it simply means a world that’s a little bit cleaner.
Cities around the world face mounting pressure to modernize infrastructure and deliver higher-quality public services while managing resources responsibly. The global IoT in Smart Cities market is projected to more than double to $260B, fueled by government initiatives to adopt intelligent, connected technologies.
Since 2015, Omniflow, based in Porto, Portugal, has led the way in reimagining public infrastructure with aesthetically pleasing, carbon-neutral technology. Their flagship innovation, a vertical-axis wind turbine combined with solar energy, reduces the visual impact of windmills while enabling urban and rural renewable power generation.
Building on that foundation, Omniflow now offers smart lampposts that integrate multiple services: public Wi-Fi, USB charging stations, small-cell base stations, smart parking, license plate recognition, fire detection, crowd monitoring, and more.
“Smart cities are our main driver as we can retrofit existing lighting systems into smart IoT lampposts, so in the end, the general population is the beneficiary for our solution,” says Pedro Ruão, Omniflow Founder and CEO. “We see average power savings of more than 90% on every installation.”
Omniflow’s patented hybrid system enables cities to replace basic streetlights with multi-service, renewable-powered infrastructure that pays dividends in sustainability and functionality.
“Our mission is to have a positive impact in the world, avoiding CO2 emissions and expanding digitalization,” says Ruão.
Each lamppost doubles as an IoT hub, enabling motion sensing, air quality monitoring, security functions, and data-driven insights via customer dashboards. These dashboards, supported by Soracom’s software-defined infrastructure, provide transparency, diagnostics, and reporting critical to city operations.
Reliable connectivity is non-negotiable. From lighting and communications to surveillance, Omniflow’s devices must deliver 99.99% uptime to maintain essential city services.
“We use cellular connectivity in two ways: first, as IoT communication with our dashboard to monitor and control devices, and second, as a service we provide to customers,” Ruão explains.
To ensure seamless performance across continents, Omniflow relies on Soracom for secure, scalable IoT connectivity.
“Assuring the connectivity to our devices is crucial as communication is part of their operating mode. With Soracom we get access to management tools and collect essential data all over the globe,” says Ruão. “Soracom makes a robust, thoughtful, and high-integrity product possible.”
Before Soracom, Omniflow worked with a patchwork of providers, creating unnecessary complexity and downtime risk. Soracom’s uniform global network and management console eliminated those obstacles while reducing costs.
Today, Omniflow has deployed thousands of smart lampposts across 30+ countries, from Europe and the US to Asia and Latin America. Cities and enterprises alike are using Omniflow to combine energy efficiency with new layers of public services.
Examples include:
“Before Soracom, we were lacking a uniform and global connectivity service,” says Ruão. “The global network and price are only the beginning of Soracom’s value add. Their support lets us scale globally while adapting to local needs.”
With Soracom’s connectivity powering its solutions, Omniflow is helping cities everywhere step into the future, delivering energy efficiency, public safety, and digital services, all while reducing carbon emissions.
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.
Large buildings like airports and shopping centers consume roughly 40% of the world’s energy, often inefficiently. Heating and cooling systems are especially challenging: they are complex to configure, often unaware of actual indoor conditions, and can leave occupants uncomfortable while consuming more energy than necessary.
Enerbrain developed a cloud-driven solution combining IoT hardware, algorithms, and mobile apps to transform building management. The system makes existing HVAC infrastructure smarter, easier to control, and more comfortable for occupants, delivering up to 30% energy savings without requiring expert oversight.
By offering a simple installation process and compatibility with existing building management systems, Enerbrain helps property managers reduce both operating costs and environmental impact.
As Enerbrain’s Energy Cloud solution expanded across Europe, it quickly faced new connectivity and data management challenges. Devices in different markets generated growing volumes of environmental data, which had to be transmitted securely from sensors to cloud platforms.
Managing device lifecycles was critical. Each sensor required unique identifiers and consistent integration with customer systems, adding complexity to deployments in multiple countries. At the same time, differing national standards for environmental and building data created the need for a standardized pipeline to combine and analyze disparate data sources smoothly.
Enerbrain needed a solution that would ensure secure connectivity, simplify global device management, and scale easily with its rapid growth.
Enerbrain selected Soracom to connect and manage its IoT devices across multiple countries. Using Soracom Air for cellular connectivity and Soracom Air for Sigfox for low-power devices, the company could unify management of both types of devices under a single platform.
For data integration, Enerbrain relies on Soracom Beam to transmit sensor data directly into AWS IoT. Soracom Canal provides secure VPC peering with AWS, while Soracom Gate ensures private bidirectional communication for device administration and troubleshooting.
Enerbrain also uses Soracom Harvest to collect baseline device metrics, enabling quick visualization and simple API access for diagnostics. This combination of services allows the company to securely manage devices, standardize its data pipeline, and integrate seamlessly with AWS cloud services.
As a data-driven company, Enerbrain needed a partner that could deliver both connectivity and a suite of cloud-integrated services. Soracom provided exactly that, enabling secure communication, real-time device management, and efficient data visualization.
“Together with Soracom Canal, Gate and Beam, we can securely integrate data from our cellular and Sigfox devices into AWS IoT and communicate back to them whenever required for tasks such as troubleshooting and upgrades,” the team explains.
The pay-as-you-go model made it easy to scale operations efficiently, while Soracom’s platform simplified SIM and device management across multiple countries. With Harvest’s fast visualization capabilities, Enerbrain significantly improved its operational efficiency, reducing time spent on troubleshooting and device oversight.
As Enerbrain continues to expand into new regions, improving operational efficiency remains a top priority. Currently, device states are monitored through Soracom APIs, and the company plans to integrate Harvest APIs for deeper cross-data mapping between products, providers, and business systems.
The next step is closer integration with Soracom Funnel, which will further streamline data processing and simplify code requirements for large-scale deployments. This will allow Enerbrain to scale its data pipeline without adding operational complexity.
Since adopting Soracom, Enerbrain has grown from serving customers in Italy and France to operating across Europe, the Americas, India, the Emirates, and Japan, where it opened a subsidiary in 2018. With Soracom as a long-term partner, Enerbrain is confident in its ability to expand globally while continuing to deliver smarter, more sustainable building solutions.
Photosynth was founded in 2014 with the vision of transforming traditional craftsmanship into connected experiences. Their flagship product, Akerun, brings digital innovation to something as fundamental as a door lock. By enabling smartphone-based access control, Akerun allows users to unlock and lock doors with a tap, while also offering features like temporary digital keys, usage logs, and shared access.
Unlike many smart lock systems that require a complete hardware replacement, Akerun is designed to attach directly to existing doors, making it both practical and accessible. The accompanying mobile app seamlessly integrates with email and social media, giving users simple tools to manage who can come and go. For many, Akerun acts as a “robot concierge” that makes everyday entry and exit more convenient.
With adoption quickly expanding in both residential and commercial spaces, Photosynth recognized that the smart lock could be more than a gadget, it could be a platform for reimagining property access. From apartments to offices to hotels, Akerun has redefined how people think about door locks in the digital age.
As demand for Akerun grew, Photosynth faced several challenges. First, in 2015, not all customers used smartphones. Roughly 35% still relied on feature phones, which limited access to Akerun’s Bluetooth-based model. Supporting users that range from older demographics to corporations with standardized feature phone fleets was key to making the service more inclusive.
At the same time, customers wanted more flexibility. Many expressed frustration when they forgot to lock their door, couldn’t confirm its status remotely, or needed to let someone inside without being physically present. These requests highlighted the need for Internet-based control, not just Bluetooth.
Finally, Photosynth saw barriers to adoption in requiring users to install a dedicated app for one-off situations, like hotel stays or temporary access. The team knew that if Akerun was going to scale, it had to become easier to use across different devices and scenarios without additional setup burdens.
To meet these needs, Photosynth introduced Akerun Remote, an IoT gateway with built-in 3G connectivity. This device connects to the main Akerun lock via Bluetooth, while end users interact with it through a web browser. By bridging Internet and Bluetooth connections, Akerun Remote enables lock control not only from smartphones but also from feature phones, laptops, and other connected devices — all without requiring an app download.
Connectivity is powered by Soracom Air SIMs, which provide secure, reliable mobile networking for every Akerun Remote. Soracom’s cloud-native platform makes it easy for Photosynth to deploy connectivity at scale, while real-time management tools let engineers track and group SIMs, monitor usage, and troubleshoot directly from the command line.
With Soracom handling connectivity, Photosynth can focus on delivering value to end users. By simplifying setup, enabling remote access, and ensuring secure connections to the cloud, Akerun Remote removes barriers to adoption and makes smart locks practical for a wider audience.
For Photosynth, choosing Soracom came down to flexibility, speed, and cost transparency. Unlike traditional telecom providers that require large upfront SIM orders and long lead times, Soracom allows Photosynth to order only what they need, when they need it, with new SIMs arriving in just a few days. This reduces inventory costs and makes it easy to scale as demand grows.
Soracom’s pay-as-you-go pricing ensures that Photosynth pays only for actual usage, a critical advantage for designing sustainable connected services. Clear cost structures also help Photosynth forecast expenses and confidently expand into new markets.
Equally important, Soracom’s platform is developer-friendly. Engineers can manage SIMs directly via API or command line, making integration with existing workflows seamless. Combined with AWS-backed infrastructure for robust security, Photosynth has found in Soracom a partner who understands both the technical and business needs of scaling IoT solutions.
For Photosynth, the future of smart locks goes far beyond replacing keys. With IoT connectivity, locks become data-rich devices capable of integrating into wider smart home and building systems. Imagine doors that automatically trigger lights, appliances, or HVAC systems based on entry and exit events. These possibilities open the door (literally) to entirely new experiences.
At the same time, reliability is critical. In emergencies, a lock must perform flawlessly. This responsibility drives Photosynth to work closely with Soracom to ensure that connectivity and control are both secure and resilient. For a product tied so closely to safety, dependable partners are essential.
As Photosynth expands globally, they face new challenges in adapting Akerun to localized lock standards. With Soracom’s own global footprint and expertise in cross-market IoT deployments, Photosynth is confident they can overcome these barriers. Together, the two companies are laying the foundation for a world where access is smarter, safer, and more connected.