Watermetrics providing low-cost IoT devices to help Canterbury farmers

‘’While the legacy Aquacom RF equipment in place has served farmers well, there are issues with increased costs to maintain the equipment and network,’’ says Watermetrics delivery manager Michael Dennis

Watermetrics are providing - free of charge - new low-cost IoT (Internet of Things) devices to help its Canterbury farming customers monitor water usage and important inputs.

‘’While the legacy Aquacom RF equipment in place has served farmers well, there are issues with increased costs to maintain the equipment and network,’’ says Watermetrics delivery manager Michael Dennis

‘’Alongside this, IoT technologies give greater flexibility to monitor additional sensors such as stock water and dairy wash down at a lower cost than ‘traditional’ loggers.’’

’’Farmers are now very aware of natural resource usage as part of their farming operations – water being a key factor for many.’’

‘’By reducing the cost to monitor water on-farm sensors, farmers can now gather input information, and create rules and alerts for their business.’’

Mr Dennis said this information is increasingly being required for Farm Environment Plans as proof of water usage to Regional Councils.

Watermetrics believe that responsibility on farmers to provide proof of resource usage is only going to increase, he said.

‘’By deploying IoT technologies, farmers will be able to meet future compliance and social licence requirements at a minimal cost.’’

The Watermetrics offer will mean:

• Free upgrade in on-farm technology for all existing owners of Aquacom equipment.

• Better management of what equipment farmers currently have along with the opportunity to add to the value of that equipment.

This is a time-limited offer and expires on 14 July 2019.

Watermetrics is in the process of contacting all Canterbury farmers who are currently using the Aquacom loggers for their approval on the free upgrade. Once a farmer has agreed, they will be added to the deployment list, based on location criteria.

Watermetrics are undertaking this project during the off-season, and are not planning any disruption to services, other than a very small outage when the data is updated (around midnight to 4 am each day).

Once the new loggers are installed, farmers can expect benefits such as:

• 15 min data displayed every 15 min on the Watermetrics web portal

• No increase in consent monitoring and data acquisition fees for 3 years.

• 2-year warranty (RTB) on the new equipment

• Ability to add inexpensive sensors without large capital outlay.

• Elimination of expensive Aquacom repair costs

There are no hardware or installation costs for Aquacom equipment replacement – if additional sensors need to be monitored, they are available for $450 plus GST, plus any installation costs.