Blog Categories

August 14, 2019

Schneider Electric has opened multiple smart factories worldwide, with its latest addition in Lexington, Kentucky. The factory boasts 10...

July 31, 2019

With the rise of progressively sophisticated connected devices, we’re on the cusp of a new era of business productivity....

June 19, 2019

The Internet of Things (or, IoT for short) is reshaping the world as we know it. From leisure to...

June 12, 2019

The Internet of Things (IoT) is driving transformation for enterprises, consumers, and governments alike. Technological advances such as smart...

May 31, 2019

IoT Much has been written about the Internet of Things and the steady rise and disruptive impact of machines and...

February 22, 2018

In December 2017 and January 2018, Polymorph was joined by new interns; Tatenda Muvhu and Mustafa Rashid. We met...

February 8, 2018

During the first three days of February The Things Network hosted the world’s first LoRa conference in Amsterdam. Divided into...

The Things Network Conference

February 1, 2018

The Things Network is a global community building an open Internet of Things infrastructure. It spans the globe with...

Innovation Trends in 2018

January 25, 2018

One only has to search innovation trends to be inundated with articles proclaiming doctors will be replaced within a...

January 18, 2018

Our mobile app development teams are comprised of designers, developers, product owners and are held together by formidable agile...

January 16, 2018

In the past year, I have written a great deal on app & product development, but it is a...

January 9, 2018

With the growing options for connectivity, JP Meijers and I took a look at the comparison between each. The vast...

January 3, 2018

Every year, I ask around the Polymorph Slack rooms and the halls of our HQ in Stellenbosch to ask...

December 27, 2017

Every year, I ask around the Polymorph Slack rooms and the halls of our HQ in Stellenbosch to ask...

December 21, 2017

Every year, I ask around the Polymorph Slack rooms and the halls of our HQ in Stellenbosch to find...

December 19, 2017

In a recent Forbes article, B2B spending on the IoT technologies, apps and solutions will reach $267 billion by...

December 5, 2017

In June, I was invited to present a talk at GeoIoT in Belgium, Brussels. The talk was centered around...

8 Steps to Better Product Innovation

November 19, 2017

Eric Rees’ book Lean Startup popularized the term Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and it has become the first step...

November 10, 2017

Many people say that the changes in business, such as disruption or applying design thinking, are because technology has...

Meeting the humans in AI (part 2)

October 19, 2017

Themes at WorldSummitAI It would be impossible to summarize the talks, events and experiences co-founders Sarah Porter (Inspired Minds), Christoph...

Meeting the humans in AI (part 1)

October 17, 2017

a “Mind Blowing” experience at Artificial Intelligence Conference, WorldSummitAI, 2017 I met Pepper the Robot… Well, I met two Peppers....

October 5, 2017

Many of the anxieties around starting a company, building a new product and developing a new app are related...

October 3, 2017

This year, I had the honor to lead #cocreateSA Inspiring Fifty. Co-founded by two extraordinary women, Janneke Niessen and...

September 21, 2017

The eXeML Conference opens in Sandton today and I am one of twelve American and South African leaders in...

September 19, 2017

In 1999, Professor of Sociology Neil Goss, made the statement that “in the next century, planet earth would don...

September 13, 2017

I was recently asked what are the top three industries that South African development and design companies do exceptionally...

September 7, 2017

Some claim that Minimum Viable Experience (MVE) replaces or supersedes Minimum Viable Product (MVP). While this might be true...

September 6, 2017

Once you have started product development, keep the following ten practical steps in mind to help you ensure an...

August 31, 2017

“it is about making it as actionable as possible while staying entrepreneur-focused” - Ash Maurya, the creator of the Lean Canvas Not...

August 30, 2017

Simply, the Product Canvas defines the solution and is easily translated into the Product Backlog which forms the backbone...

August 22, 2017

Upon meeting entrepreneurs, I regularly find that the challenge of thinking of everything related to building a company creates...

August 17, 2017

"A vision is an anchor and a hot air balloon." - Chantal Louw As an anchor, it keeps all stakeholders engaged...

August 10, 2017

"A business model describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value" -...

What is Lean Product Development?

August 7, 2017

We are often asked to define Lean Product Development (LPD) and usually we speak about product evolution and being...

July 11, 2017

In June, my colleague Johan, and I traveled to Belgium to speak at the GeoIoT conference. As one of...

May 26, 2017

The complexity, and thus the potential of IoT, has scaled remarkably with the rapid growth in the number of...

May 9, 2017

Whenever I write on technology, I think of a tool popular at workshops in introductions; explain your job to...

March 29, 2017

An oft heard refrain is “who has time to read?”, mine is always “who doesn’t?”. With that in mind,...

What is the Internet of Things?

February 22, 2017

Simply put, IoT is an acronym for the Internet of Things. For me, connection is at the heart of...

Software for Rent

January 18, 2017

In 2016, Polymorph launched a new commercial model for building apps. It's a model with much less financial risk up...

December 8, 2016

Management expert Peter Drucker is often misquoted as having said: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”...

December 2, 2016

In the 1700s, the First Industrial Revolution made many manual labour tasks redundant. Then, during the Second Industrial Revolution...

0 to MVP at Cape Town's UX Conference

November 18, 2016

The third annual User Experience conference in Cape Town was held from the 7th to the 9th of November....

November 15, 2016

As South Africa celebrated National Transport Month throughout October, a community of innovators, technologists and free thinkers came together to...

What is IoT?

August 26, 2016

At Polymorph we work on innovative products all the time. One of the growth areas in Technology at the...

Polymorph Family Day 2015

December 3, 2015

By Dané Swart & Madi Duvenhage What has three legs, a thick skin and the ability to feed the hungriest...

November 5, 2015

It’s 7am in the morning and I’m still in bed.Upon hearing the beep on my cellphone announcing a direct/group...

The Wearables Boom is coming

May 8, 2015

At Polymorph we enjoy working on innovative projects and new technology. We have been fortunate to work with clients...

Polymorph in the news

May 5, 2015

Polymorph got featured in the EikestadNuus! You can read the full article here: http://www.eikestadnuus.co.za/240388/news-details/is-hierdie-ontwerpwerk-n-wetenskap-of-is-dit-kuns

	Description	Regulation	Typical Range	Max output power	Security	It is good for…	It doesn’t work well for…	Requires…	Keep in mind for costing…
Bluetooth	Bluetooth, BLE and ANT are radio protocols meant for Personal Area Networks (PAN). Mostly these are on a person’s body or in close proximity to them.	License free ISM band	20m (line of sight)	0.003 W	Devices are paired – which is a process of exchanging encryption keys.	Devices that stay in close proximity of eachother, like between a smartphone and a headset, heart rate monitor, bicycle speedometer.	Devices that are seperated by more than a few metres, and devices that need a high communication data rate.	A bluetooth “base station”, which is included in most smartphones.	This is a popular option for health monitors and smart homes as many people have Smartphones.
Wifi	WiFi is meanly meant for broadband network connections in a confined space. Normally less than 100 square metre per access point.	License free ISM band	50m (indoors)	0.1 W	Recently WiFi security suffered from many exploits.	Works well within the area it is setup in. Great for security cameras, power meters or anything that is installed in a fixed location, has power, and needs the bandwidth.	Only works in space where it is setup and has limited range. Also uses a substantial amount of power, so it is not ideal for battery operated devices.	A WiFi access point, which can be connected to the internet or a local area network.	Although we cannot assume that everyone has home Wifi, this is a great option for industry.
GSM	GSM is the second generation mobile telephone system. It is mainly meant for voice, but also supports data in the form of SMS and GPRS. Because this is an old system, it is widely adopted and hardware is available at low cost.	Needs an expensive dedicated regional frequency/channel	35km (hard technical limit)	2 W	This old standard also suffers from exploits.	Long range capabilities, used most commonly in industry such as traffic lights, tracking of trucks and sometimes animal tracking.	Requires a lot of energy, so not ideal for battery operated devices.	Requires a contract with a mobile telephone service provider.	It is always on and thus can consume a lot of energy. Due to the good roaming capabilities tracking over borders is easier using GSM.
LoRaWAN	LoRaWAN is a low speed, but long range and low power communication protocol. It is an open specification so anyone is free to implement the protocol themselves on their own equipment.	License free ISM band	5-10km typical (heavily dependant on line of sight)	0.025 W	Based on sessions, where every session is started with static keys, but after a key exchange a unique set of AES keys are used.	Running an isolated or private network on a farm or in a city. LoRaWAN is ideal for sensors that only seldomly send a value, like a soil moisture sensor sending its measurements every 10 minutes, or a water trough alarming that it is empty. It is also a good system for the tracking and monitoring of wildlife in a predefined area.	Limitations on the used frequency band can cause high latency on delivered messages. It is therefore not an option for IoT products that require an immediate feedback loop such as health monitoring. Due to the limited coverage of a private network, it is not ideal for tracking of vehicles that travel long distances.	Investing in one’s own network with base stations, or getting a contract with a service provider that has coverage where you need it. A base station will however need an internet connection and power.	The costs of investing in creating one’s own network will be off set by having your own network which means you can create coverage where it is needed and nothing else exists.
Sigfox	Sigfox is a proprietary network and protocol. It is meant for remote meter reading, but can be used for any remote data uplink. It is low speed and low power, but also long range.	License free ISM band, but base stations are only run by Sigfox.	15 miles	0.025 W	“By default, data is conveyed over the air interface without any encryption.”. Every device does have a unique static ID. It has the ability to do end-to-end encryption in the applicatio layer. View White Paper	Remote electricity or water meter reading. Mostly uses where you do not need to have downlink messages to the device.	Message heavy applications as Sigfox limits the amount of messages one can send to a message every 10 mins in a 24 hour period. Slow speed as a sms can take a minute to send thus not an option for IoT products that require an immediate feedback loop such as health monitoring. Not ideal for live tracking a vehicle.	Sigfox coverage where you need it, as well as a subscription to use the sigfox network.	You cannot install your own base station and are limited to where the stations are setup. This does limit you in terms of the range. However, the costs of setting up your own network may be prohibitive
NB-IoT	NB-IoT runs in the mobile telephone radio spectrum, and piggybacks on old, unused GSM channels, or free space between LTE channels.	Needs an expensive dedicated regional frequency/channel	10-15km	0.2 W (max)	NB-IoT inherits LTE’s authentication and encryption.	Upgrading of GSM based systems. Mostly for sensor readings, tracking and fleet management. In the future the coverage should be comparable to GSM.	A high speed internet connection.	A subscription with a mobile telephone provider.	Subscription, sim card, data costs, hardware.
LTE	LTE is the 4th generation mobile network system. Even though it supports voice calls, it was designed for better scalability and wireless broadband. The range is normally less than GSM, but the attainable data rate is orders of magnitude more. LTE can compare to long range WiFi.	Needs an expensive dedicated regional frequency/channel	2km	0.2 W (max)	Multiple unique identifiers, static keys, and encryption methods used for the different protocol levels.	Broadband wireless internet connection. Streaming security camera video.	Low power, long range end devices that should last for years on batteries.	A subscription with a mobile telephone provider.	Subscription, sim card, data costs, hardware.
LTE Cat-M	Cat-M1 and Cat-M2 are extensions to the LTE networks, providing a low speed, low power and long range protocol for the transmission of small ammounts of data. Because it is run on top of LTE base stations, implementation is cheaper as no dedicated hardware is necessary.	Needs an expensive dedicated regional frequency/channel	10-15km	0.2 W (max)		Not deployed yet, so only for experimentation.	A high speed internet connection.	A subscription with a mobile telephone provider.	Subscription, sim card, data costs, hardware.
Satellite	The connectivity products offered by satellite providers are quite wide. It ranges from satellite phones that can only send SMS’s or make phone calls, to broadband internet connections for aeroplanes. The main benefit of satellite communication is the good global coverage. Inmarsat: Broadband for aeroplanes Iridium: SMS and Satellite phone, recently also internet connections. Argos: Dedicated to wildlife tracking and environmental monitoring	Needs an EXTREMELY expensive dedicated global frequency/channel	>10000km	1.6 W (minimum – for SMS)	Iridium: By default no security for pager traffic. Inmarsat: Had exploits, but now has an “anti-virus” for a ship. Read more here.	Broadband wireless communication, satellite phones in areas with no other connectivity, global tracking.	Realtime systems, as satellite communication has a high latency. Because satellite communication takes a lot of power, it is also not ideal for wildlife monitoring – although dedicated systems for wildlife tracking exists.	Purchase of satellite phone and contract	Expensive but worth the investment when travelling to locations with little to no other network coverage.

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