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Lost and found: How Trackimo™ is using IoT technology to give customers peace of mind

01 Jun 2022

By Editorial Team

Founded in 2013, Trackimo™ set out to solve a need.

People needed tech solutions for personal safety and for keeping track of important assets. For businesses, that meant things like equipment, containers, and vehicles. For consumers, it covers everything from pets and children to bikes and laptops.

The technology was there but it was only being used by professionals such as fleet managers or the police. The challenge was making it accessible to everyone and making people aware of how these solutions can help with enhancing traditional work practices and, most importantly, give peace-of-mind – not to mention they are easy to use too.

Starting out with one product called the Universal tracker, the company has since grown to become a world leading provider of end-to-end IoT solutions that allow people and businesses to stay connected to each other and to their belongings.

We caught up with Amit Shaked, Chief Operations Officer and Co-Founder at Trackimo™, to find out more about how the company has grown, how we’ve been working together and what goals the company has for the future.

  1. The Trackimo™ product portfolio now covers both consumer and business sectors, could you tell us a bit more about how you got there?

The first challenge was explaining to people that they had a need we could service.

Starting out with the Universal tracker, we weren’t focused on any particular vertical but over the years we noticed our trackers were being used for things we hadn’t even thought of, like Drones.

Drones are easy to lose so people started using the Trackimo™ Universal Tracker to find them. The battery last 4-5 days, which means that if a drone loses its own ability to communicate, people can use the Trackimo™ app to find it.

As other use cases started becoming more obvious, it made sense to start making versions of the tracker that were more adapted for those purposes.

Another example is our Mini tracker. With a much smaller battery, smaller capacity, and very light (only 20 grams), this was designed with pets in mind. The smaller battery only lasts 48 hours but we found our customers were okay with this as long as it was small enough and comfortable enough for their pets to wear around their collar.

We started making some adapted products like this but the main one, the Universal tracker, is still the highest selling one to date. We already released three generations of it and now it’s working on 4G networks.

  1. What lead you to start working with us?

When we started working with Vodafone, it was back in 2018. Back then Vodafone had a couple of consumer devices in its portfolio.

Working together, we introduced the Trackimo™ devices and platform integrated with Vodafone SIMs and were able to offer the customer the same standard of products – and even better - at a lower price, through an ongoing subscription. We found that this increased the sales, and fast.

In fact, over the first six months Vodafone ran out of stock a couple of times, such was the demand.

Two years later, Vodafone decided to create their own design because they wanted to have the Vodafone design identity in the product itself. We worked together to create the Vodafone Curve Tracker and once this was released the sales just flew up.

curve-smart-tracker-keys

It was a true collaboration; Vodafone helped us sell more to the market, while we helped develop a better price model for your customers.

On the business side, one of the main drivers for going into this area was Vodafone.

We started getting requirements for a product that is more suited to asset tracking so together we created a product called Vodafone Tag & Track.

image-Tag and Track

It was based on the same technology as our other trackers, running on the same platform as Trackimo™ but was a more rugged device, a little bigger and had a stronger battery that can work for almost a year out in the field.

The good thing about working with Vodafone is that you had the customer insight and could bring their requirements to our design process. Before this, we would develop trackers and then see if the customer liked them.

  1. You also sell Original Equipment Manufacturer solutions direct to manufacturers. Tell us more about that.

Asset management is one of the biggest segments across the business side of things.

Many businesses use vastly expensive equipment, whether that’s medical equipment being moved around the hospital or construction equipment being moved around the city. Both are hard to keep track of.

These organisations need to know where their equipment is, but also get data to and from the device. It’s more than tracking, its IoT enablement of this equipment.

We came up with a solution which is very small and plugs into these devices. It contains all of the Trackimo™ technology, the GPS, communication, the Vodafone SIM, and enables the operators of these devices to manage them and to view them on a back-end control system.

They can get data from the devices and shut them off remotely if they are not where they are supposed to be. They can also get alerted when they are moved and if they go beyond a certain zone.

This is what we call an OEM solution. It’s not a product that someone would buy off the shelf. It’s provided to the manufacturers of these devices as a way of enhancing their offering. Giving their customers a way to monitor them.

Just recently, one of our biggest OEM customers had a truck with several devices inside go missing. These devices cost thousands and thousands of dollars. Thanks to our technology, they recovered them within hours, just before the truck was about to leave the city.

Today, we have a couple of big companies using these, and there is a lot of interest in solutions like this.

  1. With that in mind, what is your vision for Trackimo™ in the next 3-5 years?

In terms of growth, we see the fastest growth in the consumer market.

More people are becoming aware of these products and are happy we can provide them with increasingly better prices – because of Vodafone and because we constantly refine our technology and make it more affordable.

We also want to put a lot of resource into the business side. I personally believe there is a lot of opportunity here. The adoption rates and sales circuit are slow, but once the customer is on board, the recurring revenue is much higher.

Looking ahead, we want to expand our global footprint too. And as a well-known global provider, we know we can rely on Vodafone’s connectivity and technical infrastructure to provide a high-quality service for our customers, wherever they are.

Discover more about the internet of things and how it can support your business.

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