Restaurant chains Shake Shack, Five Guys and Hard Rock Café have deployed LoRa-based temperature monitoring systems in their commercial kitchens.
UK firm CM Systems, a specialist in monitoring systems for food safety compliance, has transferred these chains, alongside regional brands like City Barbeque and Hattie B’s, from Bluteooth to LoRa based monitoring sensors, combining LoRa sensors and LoRaWAN connectivity.
CM Systems has worked with UK IoT firm Laird Connectivity to develop LoRa-based sensors from Semtech and integrate LoRaWAN connectivity into its ComplianceMate solution.
The low-power wide-area (LPWA) system penetrates steel doors, concrete walls and multiple stories of buildings, said Semtech. It brings great energy efficiency; sensors will last “for years” using standard batteries. Restaurants can use the ComplianceMate solution to control performance, reduce food safety risk, and identify operational deficiencies.
A Hattie B’s outlet in Nashville, in the US, coped with a local power power outage in February 2018, with store management taking cues from the LoRa-based ComplianceMate alert system and moving at-risk product to another facility. Semtech claims it saved $35,000 to $50,000 worth of inventory.
Steve Getraer, president at CM Systems, said: “LoRapresents exciting new opportunities for restaurants to get smart about their operations, implement more effective food safety systems and drive greater efficiencies.
“We already had what we felt was a very stable wireless Bluetooth sensor. Through our partnership with Laird Connectivity, we were introduced to LoRa devices and discovered it was secure, low-power and produced a significantly more reliable signal even in difficult conditions.”
Jonathan Kaye, senior director for product management at Laird, said: “Our LoRa-based gateways and sensors are purpose-built from the ground up to create secure, scalable, robust LoRa network solutions that stay connected in the harshest environments. Combined with our complete IoT design services capabilities and certification laboratory, we have all the expertise and tools needed to support LoRa projects and ensure successful deployment.”
Marc Pegulu, vice president of IoT for Semtech’s wireless and sensing products group, said: “Our collaboration with Laird and CM Systems allows restaurants to control performance, protect their brand, identify operational deficiencies, and reduce food safety risk.”
