Digicom Energy, part of the B810 Group, has selected the Quectel MC60 module to connect its new black box for monitoring elevators and escalators, the Look@BOX. With 45 years of experience in the design and manufacture of high-tech products, Digicom Energy offers its expertise in the fields of telecommunications, IoT and vertical mobility in the form of lifts and escalators. More recently with Intellienergy Tech, a recent addition to the B810 Group, the company has engaged in the development of intelligent systems to manage smart buildings with innovative logic in monitoring, energy consumption, temperatures, air quality and lighting.

Using QuecOpen and the MC60 to ease development of smart elevators

The company turned to Quectel having worked with it previously on other products and now uses the MC60 within the Look@BOX. It has also used the QuecOpen to develop all the firmware for the system.

“Lifts are vertical buses to transport people,” explains Stefano Galzignato, the R&D Program Manager at Digicom Energy. “We have previously developed automotive black boxes and have now ported our experience from cars to create a lift blackbox. With Quectel we have saved time in development by using QuecOpen in the same way as in our previous gate control product. The Look@BOX is installed on the top of the lift car and uses an internal three axis accelerometer with our dedicated algorithm to detect lift status. This identifies if the lift is running, blocked, vibrating or blacked-out. With an additional external sensor placed on lift doors, powered by another specific algorithm, we can monitor these activities and report all this information to the cloud.”

Quectel MC60: a dual (U)SIM module perfect for low energy consumption and harsh environments

The Quectel MC60 is a dual SIM single standby quad-band GSM/GPRS/GNSS 2G module measuring 18.7mm × 16.0mm × 2.1mm which uses LCC castellation packaging and allows customers to use two (U)SIM cards in one device. Based on the latest 2G chipset, it is optimized for SMS, data and audio transmission in harsh environments, and is designed for low-power IoT applications which require sophisticated and precise geolocation features. The compact form factor, range of geo-positioning features, low power consumption and dual (U)SIM card capability make the MC60 ideal for a wide range of IoT applications, such as wearable devices, telematics, automotive, pet tracking and asset tracking.

Digicom Energy, distributes the Look@BOX in its home market of Italy and throughout Europe. “Look@BOX is an integral part of a predictive maintenance solution that offers the following benefits: reduced plant maintenance costs, improved safety for people, uninterrupted service provision, extended lifecycle for the installation and improved customer satisfaction,” adds Galzignato. “Knowing Quectel well already we chose the MC60 for its price to performance ratio and for the support Quectel offers.” Dominikus Hierl, SVP Sales EMEA, Quectel Wireless Solutions, says: “It’s great to have been able to help Digicom Energy again, this time by providing the Quectel MC60 for its Look@BOX offering. We’re delighted to see Digicom Energy going to higher and higher levels as it helps build a smarter world.”