Smart human body temperature monitors from California-based Polysense Technologies using Semtech’s LoRa devices have been shipped to Italy to help with its Covid-19 response efforts.

Real-time data from the sensors lets healthcare workers screen individuals with a high temperature.

“With the new infra-red LoRa-based temperature sensors, cities are able to provide better health monitoring and services to communities,” said Alex Wu, president of Polysense. “Health officials will be able to monitor people’s temperature and, if needed, escalate to provide immediate healthcare to individuals who are in need.”

The global community is increasingly turning to IoT technologies to help countries and cities provide better community services to their populations. IoT products with flexible, long range capabilities allow the healthcare industry to develop applications that optimise hospital, patient care and public health workflows through reliable and accurate data monitoring.

Polysense offers its LoRa-based human temperature monitoring products in two variants. First is a wireless sensor for individual use, the WxS x800-IRTM, which leverages thermal sensing technologies and embedded LoRa devices to monitor patient temperature in real time. The sensor uses connectivity based on the LoRaWan protocol to communicate temperature data to cloud-based applications for trend analysis. Alerts are pushed to mobile devices if temperature thresholds are exceeded, allowing the patient to limit exposure to others and seek medical attention.

Secondly, Polysense’s WxS x810-IRTMS is a standalone thermal meter for use in public spaces. This product lets public health officials monitor populations on public transportation, at airports, railway stations, schools, shopping centres and large building entrances. Deployment takes place in less than five minutes, allowing immediate temperature screening and enhanced public safety.

“LoRa devices accelerate product development and enable the deployment to quickly address customers’ needs,” said Marc Pegulu, vice president of IoT for Semtech. “Polysense’s thermal temperature monitoring applications serve as an example of how LoRa-based IoT can provide immediate insights that help communities and healthcare providers better address the Covid-19 crisis.”

The LoRa-enabled products are in production and available to order immediately, with the government of Italy recently purchasing five kits to aid in its Covid-19 containment efforts.

Located in Santa Clara, California, with offices in Beijing, Luo Yang and Shanghai, Polysense develops IoT products for smart enterprise, city and home, including distributed fibre sensing, LPWAN LoRa, NB-IoT, LTE Cat M, wifi and BLE based wireless IoT sensors and its iView cloud based data management and analytics cloud platform, iEdge edge computing platform and iPalm smartphone app.

• Several of Semtech’s customers, including CIAAIoT, EasyLinkin, IOCA, RisingHF and Winext Technology, have integrated Semtech’s LoRa devices and the LoRaWan protocol with cloud-based platforms developed by Alibaba Cloud and Tencent Cloud to deploy smarter IoT-based monitoring applications for Chinese residents in quarantine.

These provide healthcare workers with data and insight into community health, allowing more optimised workflows for the distribution of efficient healthcare services during the Covid-19 outbreak.

“Smarter technologies and IoT applications play an important role in providing high quality health services during Covid-19,” said Mike Wong, vice president of China sales for Semtech. “Semtech’s LoRa devices and LoRaWan protocol provide an easy to use and deploy solution to quickly connect systems and provide optimised, effective healthcare in communities.”