Lantronix FOX3 Gateway Drives LACOS Farm Equipment Telemetry

Remotely Control and Track Farm Equipment

With the mission of improving innovation, sustainability, customer satisfaction and employee safety, LACOS had the goal of reinventing how farm equipment is remotely controlled and tracked and how information on daily operations is securely gathered and shared. Its goal was to eliminate paper logbooks by taking management and data sharing online through a secure Web portal. LACOS’s clients are farm equipment manufacturers seeking ways to improve operational  efficiency for farmers.

The Solution:

Lantronix FOX3 Series

To remotely capture and securely share information about farm equipment operations, LACOS chose Lantronix FOX3 series telematics gateways. The gateways are installed in tractors, vehicles and other farm equipment, and Bluetooth® LE tags are attached to the equipment implements, such as ploughs, spreaders, harvesting and chaff cutting tools. The solution enables the tracking of vehicle movement, location, driver status, gasoline usage and more.

“ The Lantronix Fox3 telematics gateway provides the secure multi-protocol connectivity solution we need for our LACOS telemetry solution for farm machinery.”

– Stephan Hubrich Managing Director, Marketing LACOS

Management and data sharing is accomplished via the client’s choice of a secure Web portal, which includes the LACOS portal, the client’s private portals or agricultural portals, such as 365farmnet.

The Benefit:

A Market-Ready Prototype and Speed to Market

Utilizing the Lantronix FOX3 series telematic gateways gave LACOS a costeffective solution to help develop its online equipment management and tracking solution.

Benefits included:

• Intelligence at the edge with the ability to define logic in the telemetry gateways, which enables faster decisions, eliminates the need to define logic in post-processing and reduces the amount of stored data.

• BLE tags, which, when attached to the implements, provide the ability to document the key machine (e.g., tractor) and implement without having to install a telemetry unit on every agriculture device, delivering a significant cost reduction.

• The BLE module, which utilizes the BLE tags and provides customer usage data, such as location and time frame used, that enables LACOS to create new applications, including agricultural rental equipment management and inventory improvements.

• Management and data sharing, which is accomplished via the client’s choice of a secure Web portal and includes the LACOS portal, the client’s private portal(s) or agricultural portals, such as 365farmnet.

• For the farmer, LACOS’s solution helps facilitate more precise farming and increased field cultivation through the use of Web ports that simplify logistics, tracking and data logging while eliminating the need for paper logbooks.

“ Lantronix’s Fox3 series telematics gateway delivers a clear competitive advantage over other products on the market

– Stephan Hubrich, Managing Director, Marketing, LACOS