It is quite common to notice streetlights powered on in the day and the maximum we can do is grumble about it.
However, there could be a solution in sight and it is a group of youngsters who have decided to stand up and make a difference. While everyone sought to complain about it, this bunch of impressive mid twenty year olds are now working on a pilot project with the government that in their own words, ‘can make street lighting intelligent'.
Amidst all the chaos of the software bubble, their company Wafer Electronics, develops hardware and software products that have real-life impact by solving day to day problems. "We feel that there is still a gap between technology and user-friendliness, and we want to bridge this gap by building electronic products that work intuitively," said Nagarjun Kinare, Founder.
While they have clients from United States, Nordic and Baltic regions of Europe, they are keen on giving back to society and besides the pilot projects; they're also in talks with different corporations and panchayats across Goa like Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd, Goa Industrial Development Corporation and Calangute Panchayat.
Their product Tungsta intuitively manages streetlights with a centralised system. They have currently done a pilot in Goa and are working with the Government of Goa, since the capital Panaji is a part of the Smart city program and has over 5000 street lights and are targeting all the cities which are bound to become Smart Cities soon.
"The idea behind Tungsta relies heavily on the fact that close to 26% of the street lights in Goa are non-operational and we can see a significant group of street lights remaining on in broad daylight throughout the year," said Kinare.
As a company that builds IoT (ecosystem of connected physical objects that are accessible through the internet) based devices, they investigated this issue. They realised that the primary reason behind this is that, even today, in the era of smartphones, the entire maintenance is done by the electricity department, right from turning these lights on in the evening to repairing them only when a complaint is received. Forget the energy saving aspect, there is nothing in place to look after these street lights once they have been installed and running.
"One of the biggest tackles on working on government infrastructure is finding accurate data or a person with relevant data, for the matter of fact. In some industrial estates it is difficult to find these street lights mapped on a CAD (computer assisted design) file. We have physically surveyed to get this data. With over 1.2lakh street lights in Goa that is quite a huge task," added Kinare
Tungsta is a cloud-based wireless system for your street or outdoor lighting. Their system works by connecting to LED fixtures or retro-fitting to existing fixtures. The intelligent system enables energy savings by using precise amount of light you need and can accurately measure every watt used. It cuts maintenance costs with real-time fault monitoring and by using detailed operational intelligence to improve day-to-day effectiveness and planning.
The Tungsta Panel is a simple yet powerful interface that allows one to extensively control and monitor their street lights from anywhere using a tablet, PC or a smartphone. The Panel is connected to our Cloud platform that relays real-time data and commands. The Tungsta Hub acts as a gateway between the Cloud platform and the Tungsta Nodes. Tungsta's long-range low-power wireless communication system offers easy deployment; they are compatible with all leading lighting manufacturers.
"Even though we heavily back our product on the fact that we save a lot of energy and helps improve maintenance and inventory this is merely because our clients look for RoI (Return on Investment) and the benefits of this system. But for us, it is all about the big picture, the future, " added Kinare. He went on to explain how they have built this whole platform keeping in mind integration of solar panels, sensors, LED signages, Wifi, power adapters in the future.
" Even the hardware we have built can simply be swapped with a Wifi module, thus making each pole a Wifi Hotspot. Besides that we do a preventive maintenance quarterly for every pole irrespective of its condition, we make sure each pole is taken care of. Like the old saying goes, ‘an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure', it definitely applies to electronics hardware as well," said Kinare.
Innovative to the core
Kinare who lives in Panaji studied Electronics & Telecommunication at Padre Conceição College Of Engineering (PCCE) and has immense experience of taking ideas to fully fledged production level for the company and multinational clients.
Two more co founders, are also from PCCE- Valindo Godinho, from Nuvem, Margao who studied Computer Science and Samay Phaldesai from Porvorim who studied Mechanical Engineering. Valindo is the system architect of the products built by Wafer Electronics, he has helped write books on various programming languages like GoLang while Samay looks after the sales, clients and complete business strategy for the company.
Their lead software engineer, the Merces based Kirit Ayya who studied Computer Science at Rayeshwar Institute of Engineering & Information Technology (RIEIT), is a full stack developer with experience building IoT applications for various MNCs.
Situated out of Miramar, the rest of their team (comprises nine hardcore engineers) is from Goa Engineering College (GEC and PCCE. And this is no ordinary start up. They have been featured by CNBC-TV18 as one of the Top 3 Eye-Catching Start-ups, and were also featured amongst the Top 20 Start-ups in India, at Innofest 2015 in Bangalore, as part of the ‘Make in India' initiative. The company was founded in 2015, with the launch of its first product, the Wafer Tag.
They then went on to launch Plugzee, which is India's most successful crowdfunding campaign of its time! The product went on to raise over $50,000 on Indiegogo, and has sold over 5000 units worldwide. It's a device that connects to audio speakers and makes them Bluetooth enabled with high-quality audio and it revolutionised the industry, by changing the way people listen to music across the world.
Among the many accolades since, they have also been invited by BuildIt Accelerator, Europe's largest hardware business accelerator, for incorporation and business development in the European Union.
Wafer Electronics is originally a company that is incorporated in Estonia, as it was part of Tartu Science Park for its initial Research & Development. They raised a round of seed funding in Europe and are currently based out of Goa and Estonia.
Wafer Electronics has their manufacturing unit based in Shenzhen (China) and in Ahmadabad (India). But their entire assembly line is in-house at their office in Miramar.
Key features
# Control and dim fixtures to enable optimum lumen levels based on requirement
# Real-time monitoring of fixtures for faults and failures with instant notifications
# Measure every watt consumed and save up to 68% energy with operational intelligence
# Save more energy with integrated motion sensing enabled during in odd traffic hours
# View all fixtures on Google Maps for easy access to fixture location during maintenance
n Easy integration of sensors, camera, Wifi hotspots etc. thus making each pole an IoT device
# Maintenance scheduling to help repair faults faster and efficient inventory management
# Compatible with all light fixtures from leading lighting manufacturers across the world
