Swiss firm Akenza has integrated Microsoft’s Azure IoT hub as an output connector on its IoT platform.

Imagine thousands of deployed IoT devices in an urban environment, vast numbers of devices that transmit and consume small amounts of data. LPWAN connectivity technologies such as LoRaWan and Sigfox are key connectivity technologies for such IoT rollouts.

To reduce energy consumption and keep the data packets as small as possible, LPWAN devices send their data via a payload encoded in formats that differ from standard data payloads. This complicates their setup and use in the Azure IoT ecosystem with all its features, leaving many potential use cases unfeasible. The Azure IoT Hub output connector from Akenza aims to improve this.

The firm has a low-code IoT platform letting users build IoT products and services by connecting, controlling and managing such IoT devices. By offering multiple output connectors, Akenza allows further data processing in third party applications with little effort.

Specifically, it is now possible for users to connect their Azure IoT hub instance as a data destination. Device data from the Akenza platform can be processed to the specific Azure IoT hub and be further used for any Azure product. The process of connecting the specific Azure IoT hub to Akenza can be done in a few clicks on data flow level and is entirely automated, enabling secure, reliable communications between any low-power sensor and the Azure IoT hub.

This integration enables smart city, smart building and smart industry use cases in the low power massive IoT ecosystem.

“I am really delighted to see such straight-forward applications from our innovative Swiss start-up partner,” said Maruscha Heyner, head of partnerships and marketing at Microsoft in Switzerland. “Akenza proves once more that IoT can be simplified through an appealing low-code platform and an ever-growing ecosystem.”

Fabian Gerschwiler, product manager at Akenza, added: “We are thrilled to offer such a great integration for our customers. Using advanced data analytics and other native Azure services is key for our corporate clients, and allows the joint use of Akenza and Azure with the best from both worlds.”

Akenza was founded in 2017 to deliver fast, easy and cost-effective IoT. It is headquartered in the financial capital of Switzerland, Zurich, where it helps companies from all around Europe develop their own smart IoT products and services.