Utilities Test IoT for Water Heater Management | RFID JOURNAL
May 13, 2020Several U.S. utility companies are piloting a recently released Internet of Things (IoT)-based solution that enables them to better control power load on their grid by detecting the temperature and voltage of each water-heating unit, and by allowing the units to be turned off when necessary via cellular or proprietary 2.4 GHz LAN connectivity. The solution, provided by Apricity, located in Bend, Oregon, includes IoT-enabled water heater controllers known as Aras, installed inline, using the line voltage as a power supply. Each Ara comes with a built-in Nordic Semiconductor chip to transmit data regarding water heater temperatures and voltage via cellular WAN or 2.4 GHz LAN, as well as a built-in nRF9160 System-in-Package (SiP).