Lhings – Lyncos Technologies

Short description of the app/service

Lhings is a cloud platform that enables the connectivity of devices and services in order to create innovative applications. It is accessible to anyone as it provides a free subscription plan to create an account. It therefore allows citizens, organizations or cities to connect devices or systems and create services with them to be consumed by others. In this context, FIWARE plays an important role as it is the standard that makes the interoperability possible.

As the amount of information increases with better infrastructure, city councils and institutions are working hard to obtain the best results by adding “intelligence” to their city. However, cities encounter a number of difficulties as such projects are costly and hard to implement, and often their own citizens do not feel part of these efforts. Lhings focuses on implementing the required technology-based solutions in cities by promoting the Internet of Things (IoT) as an enabler and facilitator that allows municipalities, companies and, most importantly, citizens to be part of a proactive smart city.

In this context, the main objective is to build a pilot in order to obtain a framework based on FIWARE which leads to a feasible and easy to implement technology for any city, of any type or size, which encourages the participation of its citizens. This pilot is deployed at the city campus of the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) in Barcelona, starting with a unified system for issue reporting to optimize campus maintenance.

Problem being addressed / business opportunity / USP

The public sector has many ideas for new services for the benefit of their citizens and in the interests of improved sustainability. Most of them are based on connectivity and the information they are able to obtain. The more information is obtained from city sensors, the better the services they might provide. However, there are a number of obstacles starting from technical issues that lead to complex implementation at high cost. The interoperability of systems and services is one of the key issues that obstructs the implementation of this type of solution. This limitation, usually imposed by vendors, also affects the new generation of business models based on the integration of these systems.

In essence, Lhings employs technology that allows anybody to be a consumer or a provider of services based on device connectivity. These devices can be of any type, from consumer electronics, such as light bulbs, washing machines or air conditioning for individual or family use at home; to industrial products, such as gateways, elevators, parking systems or access controls for service providers and companies in smart buildings or cities. The idea is to implement real business cases through pilots deployed in cities that make use of IoT technology, thereby offering services which benefit both city councils and citizens in the quest of improving quality of life in a sustainable society.

The Team

Agustín Navarro, CEO. main business developer, also working on embedded software and hardware development

Jose Antonio Lorenzo, CTO, working on main backend server and tools for user development; also marketing and business development

Sergi Martinez, developer, working on main frontend development; manager of mobile app development

Part time employees:

Melba Navarro, business development and technology transfer advisor

Javier Marcipar, business development consultant

Freelance:

José Gonzalez, lead developer of iPhone apps

Narcis Malagelada, lead developer of Android apps.