Finland Times

Thingsee One is a device that makes the Internet of Things (IoT), and thus life, easier and faster for solution developers. It measures location, motion, speed, orientation, temperature, humidity, air pressure, light and time, and with that info you choose between states of action on the server or device side.

With the downright avalanche of sensors, devices and new uses for machine-to-machine networks, solution developers have noticed that the biggest bottlenecks lie in hardware development, prototyping and testing. Many things can go wrong – sensors may not provide interchangeable data for the system, cloud services have different APIs, or the feedback system does not integrate with the network in order to refine the ongoing data output. 

Northern Scandinavian Capital City Oulu headquartered Haltian, the mother company of Thingsee, noticed that as it grew the IoT market became more fragmented with thousands of separate ecosystems and platforms and it realised that the market needed better tools for creating new services and products. “Thingsee One is something that we would have needed for many of our own early-stage development projects, just as our customers would have done for theirs. The idea of delivering a product and platform for other developers grew from that,” said Ville Ylläsjärvi, founder and CMO at Thingsee and co-founder at Haltian. After a successful kick-starter campaign, the device is now being shipped.

The idea behind Thingsee One is simple: buy the device, sign up on the Thingsee Creator app, connect the two and you’re on your way. The Creator is for configuring what information you want and what is the meaning of the data – is the bus going too fast? Is coffee too hot? Should the kids be sleeping? Or to be more serious, is everything ok with the helicopter? The whole concept has been called “ridiculously easy” to configure and fine-tune, and for a start-up IoT company or a corporate developer team that could mean worlds in order to get that new, ground-breaking idea implemented quickly. 

Once the data starts rolling in, the system can change between states of action, which can be easily configured and sent to a cloud, where other actions can take place – and if there is no cloud service available for the developer yet, Thingsee offers a prototype-level server-side service and reference implementations as well. If need be, the device can send you messages about its status via SMS or push notifications. And in case the default software isn’t enough (for you), it’s open source for tweaking, with source code available for backend services and apps to implement on, and an SDK kit for device SW customisation on the way. And once the network is running and it’s time to think about entering the market big time with optimised value, the developers can order a custom-designed Thingsee-based device under their own brand but “Powered by Thingsee” for manufacturing. 

Thingsee One is completely designed and manufactured in Finland, which is another mark of quality for the company. “We decided that in terms of distance, information security and quality, it would be wisest not to have devices manufactured in the Far East.” The aspiration for quality has shown in sales: in the short time it has been available, Thingsee One has already sold hundreds of units to tens of companies of all sizes, and it looks things will only get better in the future.

“We think the developer market will expand drastically within the next five years or so, which means the number of companies and devices will snowball,” Ylläsjärvi explained. This probably means increasing numbers of not just developer communities but also makers and hobbyists – something that they expect to happen. With the price range of Thingsee One – 299 USD or EUR, depending on your location – it’s not impossible.