Danish company TrapMe has built a better mousetrap using IoT technology from Telit.
 
TrapMe wanted to develop a connected snap trap mousetrap to help pest control companies work more efficiently and cut overall costs. The result was a cellular-connected trap, powered by secure module-embedded SIM technology.
 
Using Telit’s SimWise helped TrapMe provide a better IoT product by eliminating the cost of a physical SIM from the bill of materials and providing more flexibility for mobile connectivity.
 
“The Telit module is very crucial to our product because that’s what brings it alive,” said Kim Hansen, branch manager for TrapMe. “It goes from an ordinary tool to a smart tool.”
 
Those engaged in facility management services, such as pest control companies, can count on a large amount of their operation expenses to be incurred by field service visits. TrapMe sought to develop a way to reduce the frequency of these visits.
 
As a field-service optimisation tool, the connected snap trap can provide pest control companies and their customers more efficient and proactive service. It can offer a 100% accurate cellular-connected trap with an accompanying cloud-connected software portal.
 
“The challenge pest controllers have is that they have to go every week,” said Hansen. “That’s impossible due to the amount of contracts they have.”
 
Cellular products can take years to design and certify. And a cloud platform is often a six-figure investment in R&D and talent, and negotiating cellular connectivity with multiple international multi-network operators can take a significant amount of time.
 
To bring its internationally deployable, long-battery life product to market quickly, TrapMe sought a comprehensive IoT technology partner with the portfolio breadth and experience to keep up with its demands. Because of its enterprise-grade hardware, connectivity and platform built from a pure-play IoT focus encompassing the past 20 years, Telit was chosen.
 
Any location, any country, any situation, the trap benefits from Telit’s cellular module form-factor family and technological longevity. TrapMe is building on an agility-enabling hardware platform so it can adapt and support its consumers’ growing demands.
 
Telit’s secure module embedded SimWise technology removes the need for a separate physical SIM, eliminating that cost from the bill of materials and providing flexibility for mobile connectivity.
 
Telit’s global cellular connectivity network built on agreements with network operators such as Telefonica, Tele2 and Vodafone ensures individual rat traps will be able to roam automatically and connect to the network offering the most powerful signal. If TrapMe wants to switch from one mobile network in the Telit IoT connectivity plan to another, it can do so simply using SimWise, which allows standardised, secure remote SIM provisioning to manage the life cycle of the trap, without a service call to swap SIM cards physically.
 
Finally, the Telit IoT platform is cloud-based for easy access, data management and delivery that’s easy to set up and use. TrapMe receives administrative tools to manage the entire network, while the pest control companies it sells to receive cloud-based administrative capabilities
 
If the pest control companies require integration into their existing ERP systems such as SAP or Azure, the platform provides IoT integration capabilities directly into that cloud software.
 
The cellular-connected trap provides information that lowers the number of visits. Clients benefit from increased compliance. Each spring of the trap results in an audited report that is maintained in a cloud database for the next decade. This ensures operator compliance to increasingly stringent EU laws regarding humane pest control.