Client
Waste Harmonics
Project
Container Monitoring
The Brief
Waste Harmonics provides customized waste management services for businesses. They have developed technology to monitor commercial waste and recycling containers with and without compactors, tanks for oils and other liquids, and donation containers for textiles. By monitoring the fullness of these containers, there is potential to significantly reduce trucking costs by waiting until the container is full before picking it up. The system can also control access to the container for multi-tenant establishments like apartment buildings and shopping malls.
The Challenge
As an IoT pioneer, Waste Harmonics was constantly trying to keep up with the rapidly evolving electronics industry. When components approached end of life, the cost of sourcing alternatives continued to increase, and cellular carriers were discontinuing support of 3G cellular networks. The loss of cellular connectivity added some urgency and complexity to the issue. In addition to updating systems in production, Waste Harmonics would also need to systematically retrofit all systems in the field.
The Breadware Solution
Breadware was tasked with updating system electronics to include new cellular modems, replace obsolete parts, and find cost effective alternatives for all remaining parts. It was important to maintain backwards compatibility with in-field legacy systems. This included updating and documenting 30+ years of firmware that evolved significantly over that time. Breadware introduced Waste Harmonics to new contract manufactures (CM) and worked with the selected CM to create test fixtures for the production line.
