Saft, a subsidiary of TotalEnergies, has launched LiSa, the world’s first predictive service to provide a reliable estimate of the remaining life of primary lithium batteries powering IoT devices. LiSa’s service and functionality have been validated in partnership with IoT device manufacturers. It provides fleet operators of meters, sensors, and beacons with the key data they need to improve the performance, responsiveness, and visibility of their maintenance operations.
Fleet operators have faced the challenge that they could not measure the remaining lifetime of their batteries without taking them apart in the laboratory. That has now changed with LiSa. The new predictive service is set to make a major contribution to optimizing asset management, creating cost-effective replacement programs, and reducing environmental footprint by ensuring devices are not taken out of service with plenty of battery life still remaining.
Saft was a pioneer in the industrialization of primary lithium batteries over 40 years ago. This enabled the mass production of very reliable batteries for electronic devices. The number of connected IoT devices is estimated to grow to 40 billion by 2030 Saft estimates that some 440 million IoT devices deployed worldwide each year could benefit from LiSa.
Bluefield Engineering, an early adopter and technology partner of LiSa, considers that industrial equipment managers face economic and environmental challenges when deciding the right time to replace their IoT devices when onboard batteries are nearing the end of their expected life. Waiting too long increases the risk of failure. But replacing equipment too soon is a waste of money and resources. With LiSa, fleet operators can now receive an accurate prediction of the remaining battery life of their device in the field when interrogating the service.
LiSa is aimed at IoT applications powered by Saft’s primary lithium thionyl chloride (Li-SOCl2) batteries. Each device has a unique energy consumption profile, which is determined by several factors such as operating temperature, location, and quality of connectivity network. This new service has been developed over five years to solve this challenge. Its success is founded on Saft’s wealth of experience modeling the predicted lifetime of primary batteries by combining detailed theoretical analysis with real-world data drawn from in-field testing.
Defining an accurate and reliable power profile for an IoT device can be challenging. As a technology partner, Bluefield Engineering is able to provide support, guidance, and analysis to tackle this task.
LiSa is available as a subscription service for connected devices from leading manufacturers using Saft batteries. The predictive information is delivered through an Application Programming Interface (API) that is compatible with existing dashboards used by IoT fleet operators.
