IoT, Fidget Spinners, and Millions of Steps

Cisco Live! It is my favorite Cisco event that is held every year for our customers. Being held in one of the big convention centers in Las Vegas, Mandalay Bay, everyone walked at least 3-5 miles every day between sessions, the show floor, and meetings.  What was unique this year was that every attendee’s steps and miles were counting towards generating energy that would be donated to light up schools in Nepal! Related to social impact, another gratifying moment for me was to be one the hosts for Cisco’s Public Safety booth.

The booth displayed IoT solutions for Public Safety, and was visited by several government and law enforcement officials and employees.  As eager as they were in seeing our solutions, we too were eager to hear from our customers. Improving public safety and creating safer cities while bringing speed and efficiency to their own operations was top of mind. City officials are eager to provide safe conditions to citizens through alerts and up-to-date information on road and weather conditions. On the show floor, we demonstrated that Cisco’s connected roadways solution provides exactly that, by securely connecting disparate intelligent transportation systems to improve traffic flow and reduce roadside incidents. Sensors installed along roads and traffic signals communicate through Cisco’s ruggedized IoT networking infrastructure to send alerts concerning road conditions such as fog, ice or congestion. The solution, which is enabled by the Cisco IOx edge computing capability on the IR829 router, results in quick and efficient incident response.

Cisco’s connected car for first-responders caught the attention of several fire, police, and emergency service personnel. We displayed how our solution, powered by the IR829 mobile router, delivered resilient and redundant connectivity for their mission critical operations, while complying with safety mandates and regulations. A single integrated platform that enables constant contact with dispatchers and fleet managers, it provides comprehensive intelligence and emergency management capabilities through using video and sensor information. Tracking the location, speed, fuel consumption, and other statistics that can be monitored to ensure all vehicles are running at their optimum levels saves the department significant maintenance costs over the life of vehicles.

Any guesses on what the most common giveaway at booths were this year? If you said  fidget spinners, you are correct, and how cool would it be to have IoT-fidget spinners to record and compare the fastest one! While IoT-enabled fidget spinners can than be the cool new toy, there is nothing cooler than saving lives and protecting communities through Cisco’s IoT solutions for Public Safety.

Visit the Public Safety portals at connected emergency response and public safety where you will find more information on Cisco’s public safety solutions.