In less than a year since its launch, Qualcomm’s IoT Services Suite is covering more than 30 verticals and the firm has introduced an enhanced platform to support IoT-as-a-service (IoTaaS) applications.

Announced at this week’s third annual Smart Cities Accelerate event in San Diego, Qualcomm said this growth was critical to enabling the global digital transformation of industries with a differentiated approach that leveraged the increasing number of smart devices that made up the connected intelligent edge.

“To directly address the fragmented nature of the IoT industry, our Qualcomm IoT Services Suite is helping bridge the gap for IoT service providers and entities looking to efficiently and effectively deploy smart solutions,” said Sanjeet Pandit, senior director at Qualcomm. “In just one year, the offering has grown beyond our expectations, and we are proud of the interest we have attained and the shift in mentality we have driven to meet the needs of smart solutions across multiple industries beyond just smart cities.”

The suite can benefit businesses and entities looking to adopt smart technology. The IoTaaS model is designed to remove the need to invest in costly and fragmented efforts. Adopting IoTaaS enables streamlined, end-to-end offerings reducing a process that previously took months or years down to a matter of weeks.

What started as intelligent services for smart cities has emerged as a digital transformation offering, enabling adopters to create self-sustaining revenue models by monetising their own smart technology.

Qualcomm has added features to deliver additional capabilities including: drag-and-drop deployment with low code development; automated device onboarding and management; streamlined device configuration and customisable user-interface; integrated standard operating procedures workflow; and edge-AI and cloud integration enabling scalability and efficiency.

Highlights of the latest IoTaaS verticals include inspection-as-a-service that provides the ability to detect incidents on construction sites and deploy roof top inspection, safety and security missions as a first responder, provide emergency response and support for natural disasters, and more with FlightOps.

“FlightOps is proud and honoured to participate as a topic expert for drone management and inspection as a service in the Qualcomm Smart Cities Accelerate 2021 event,” said Shay Levy, chief executive officer of FlightOps, “presenting and demonstrating how the FlightOps Drone OS coupled with the powerful Qualcomm Flight RB5 5G platform is revolutionising the air mobility market. The powerful Qualcomm platform, coupled with 5G connectivity and our robotic FlightOps drone operating system allows us to offer unprecedented performance and operational scalability, flying larger numbers of drones, to longer distances and performing complex missions in complex and shared airspace.”

Smart asset management-as-a-service delivers options for supply chain visibility, transforming the asset management experience by improving tracking, compliance and efficiency with Tag N Trac.

“When you have all sources of information about your global supply chain in one place, it’s easier to ensure your products reach their destination for your customers,” said Venu Gutlapalli, chief executive officer at Tag-N-Trac. “Maximising visibility of the eight imperatives for supply chain excellence includes location monitoring, connectivity, global operations, supply chain intelligence, sensors, temperature monitoring, theft mitigation and data analytics. Teaming with Qualcomm on IoTaaS helps us meet these eight imperatives at low cost from silicon to edge computing.”

Traffic management-as-a-service reimagines how cities plan, control and adapt the flow and movement of traffic on their streets and improves the commuting and driving experience for all road users, traffic signal optimisation for reduced congestion and improved safety, and event and emergency notification and pre-emptions with NoTraffic.

“Working with cities and traffic agencies throughout the USA and Canada on their urban mobility challenges, we see immediate improvements in their key metrics such as delay times, CO₂ pollution and safety, not to mention the residents’ satisfaction,” said Tal Kreisler, chief executive officer of NoTraffic. “The collaboration with Qualcomm gives us access to innovative technology on the one hand, and to strategic, mobility-focused initiatives on the other hand, generating a win-win-win scenario in the IoTaaS domain. Qualcomm solutions are fundamental components of the NoTraffic autonomous traffic management platform.”

Smart venues-as-a-service uses a lidar based safety and security system that adheres to the privacy concerns and optimises the use of space with The Indoor Lab.

“Given The Indoor Lab’s leading position for creating smart spaces using lidar, we see integrating with the Qualcomm IoT Services Suite as an evolutionary extension to scale, future proof and deliver a safer experience for venues and operators with our Traffic Analyzer platform,” said Patrick Blattner, chief product officer at The Indoor Lab.