Resource Article: Remote Monitoring Positioned For Major Growth

By Pedro Pereira, Field Technologies magazine

When it comes to remote monitoring, you'd be excused for letting your imagination run wild about what's to come. Already common in tracking fleets of cars and trucks, uses for the technology will multiply in coming years across a wide range of industries including utilities, security, government, and healthcare.

It won't be long before just about anything you can imagine can be tracked from afar — from freight pallets of pharmaceuticals or foodstuffs, to kitchen appliances, to a grandparent with Alzheimer's. The ability to remotely monitor objects and people, no matter where they are, will become as common as a cell phone. Making this possible is a convergence of M2M (machine-to-machine) technology with consumer applications that are being facilitated by price drops in wireless data communications, improved bandwidth, new content, and the proliferation of the tracking systems themselves.