German-based Datacake GmbH offers a multi-purpose and low-code IoT platform that comes with a special promise: No programming skills are required, and it takes just minimal time to create custom IoT applications that can be brought into a white label IoT solution.

But software is not everything the company in Vreden, an idyllic town in the middle west of Germany, surrounded by plenty of nature, has to offer. To connect device setups in remote or rather difficult environments with the Internet of Things, Datacake offers its clients a LoRaWAN as well as an Industrial IoT Gateway that paves the way to the outside world.

Cellular Mobility plays a vital role in Datacakes connectivity solutions. Even a LoRaWAN Gateway at one point needs a flexible connectivity solution. For these tasks, Datacake chose 1NCE.

Background

The range of application for the Datacake solution are broad. While the platform is already in use worldwide, solutions with hardware-supported connectivity are mainly active with clients in Germany and the Netherlands so far. One notable use case: The connected egg: Inside a Chicken-Stable, a Datacake Gateway is being used to monitor an automated chicken egg washing line.

Challenge

“Even though we’re working with LoRaWan on site, our Gateway still needs a connection to the outside world”, says Datacake CEO Simon Kemper. “And this is, where it gets tricky. How do we connect our Gateways to the cloud? Cellular tariffs are usually quite complicated and hard to predict. You need to know the estimated data usage to get a fitting tariff or you can’t use the product flexible cross border without additional roaming charges. That makes calculating a business case a real challenge.”

1NCE Solution

The 1NCE IoT Flat Rate has everything, Datacake needs. A simple tariff with a one-time payment of 10 Euros that covers the complete lifecycle of an IoT device over 10 years. “The pricing model is ingenious”, adds Kemper. But that is not the only thing: “1NCE gives us the freedom to roam on different networks and it doesn’t make a difference where our customers are located. On top of that, by connecting our cloud with 1NCEs API we can include a lot of useful connection data directly into our solution.”