A university campus is beautifully landscaped with many large, decorative, multi-layer fountains. Controlling the height of the fountain jets is critical – not only for aesthetics but safety. During windy weather, the water sprays onto sidewalks and roads. During cold weather, the water freezes - causing dangerous icy conditions for pedestrians and vehicles. Adjusting the water jet height involves manual access to underground fountain vaults throughout campus. 

The Challenge

Adjusting multiple fountains manually - many times a day - is time-consuming and potentially hazardous for maintenance workers.

The Solution

With our Cellio solution and TagIO’s visualization dashboard, remote Transceivers placed inside each fountain’s vault can be real-time (or time-schedule) commanded via PC or phone dashboard to control the fountain height via RS-485 connection to the fountain’s controller. 

Cellio utilizes a collection of Transceivers which connect to various sensors and controllers. The Transceivers communicate via 915 MHz LoRa radio over a one-mile line-of-site to an LTE cellular gateway, aggregating all the Transceiver data and sending it to a backend server application for storage, visualization, analytics, and alerting. Utilizing a unique, proprietary “always on” feature developed by Device Solutions, Semtech LoRa enabled remote transceivers in underground vaults to actively listen to a centralized Gateway for real-time commands to control large VFD motors remotely used to control ornamental fountain levels.  

(Cellio Transceiver)

A few strategically placed Gateways are all needed to cover the entire campus of 10+ fountains. Cellio downlink control can also trigger on/off for motors and switches to meet industrial application needs based on remote monitoring of critical systems.

The Results

Success!  “I am responsible for controlling the height of the water jets on 10 large ornamental fountains around our college campus. We want the fountains to look as attractive as possible, but fountains at maximum water height can cause safety hazards in cold and windy conditions. Overspray can freeze on the pavements causing treacherous icy surfaces or unintentionally getting pedestrians wet. To change the fountain height, my crew used to have to open a vault in the ground, climb down a wet ladder (which can be dangerous), manually adjust the fountain motor/pump height, and come back out. We typically do this 5 or 6 times per day per fountain. Since we installed Cellio, our crew is safer, has more time to attend to other campus maintenance issues, and we are saving money, and our fountains look perfect 24/7/365. We installed a Cellio wireless Transceiver inside the vault at each fountain that talks to the fountain’s motor controller over RS-485 – and wirelessly communicates to a Cellio Gateway in the center of campus to send and receive commands remotely. Since installing Cellio, my team no longer needs to climb down into the vaults to adjust the fountain levels multiple times a day – they can do it all right from their phone. They can also schedule automatic on/off times in the morning and evening. The labor savings alone paid for the entire system in only a few months.”  - Spencer, University Maintenance Manager.

Onboarding Cellio Gateways and Transceivers is fully supported and easily managed by TagoIO. Having architected, built, and tested IoT solutions for multiple successfully deployed applications, Device Solutions and TagoIO (providing back-end data services and dashboard visualization) are uniquely positioned to help customers get to market quickly.

(Dashboard Example)

Together, we provide full-service support for:

• Integrated data hosting (AWS, direct to enterprise)

• Device management, programming, OTA, and FW updates

• White-label customization for managing partner customers

• Billing services for managing partner customers

• Dashboard visualization, APIs

• Notifications, alerts, downlink control

Learn more about Device Solutions:  device-solutions.com
Contact the team by email:  info@device-solutions.com