Things that did happen in 2020

One of the precursors to enabling an expansion of our Things Network Community here in Wokingham is full, or nearly full coverage across the area. It is rather a chicken and egg thing, deploying devices needs gateways and to make buying a gateway worthwhile devices need to be deployed in useful applications.

My focus over the past 5 years has been assisting Reading initially and then with the four Smart Berks Clusters. During 2020 the disruption to Universities, Schools and Local Authorities has also disrupted the Smart Berks challenges. Mostly this delayed the rollout of the trials.

A good thing that did continue was the installation of Smart Berks connected Gateways. The first phase focused on challenge winners areas whose projects needed Smart Berks wireless connectivity, so this was West Berks, Reading and then Bracknell, with Wokingham following on. So now Smart Berks coverage for Wokingham is so much better than at the beginning of the year.

This last week saw a virtual workshop focusing on the Smart Berks Challenge results, with presentations given to the four councils by each Challenge winners. While most of these projects have been low key, those involved are pleased with the results and they will be promoted widely in the near future.

For those that have been following TTN Community and TTN Enterprise Stack development will know that the interchange of messages between the two networks is needed for community applications to receive messages via an enterprise instance such as Smart Berks is. Final testing of the enabling release was delayed while Working From Home imposed new requirements on IT for all involved, and I am hopeful it will happen early next year.

I know there are lots of people around Wokingham Town that have an interest in what the The Things Network offers and encourage you to sign up here so we can start building the community to 'official' status. If you have a Gateway add it to the map and get in touch.

At the end of January is the global Things Conference held in Amsterdam. For 2021 it will be virtual. Discounts are available now for Community members so this is a great time to signup here, there is no more commitment than showing your interest in helping build The Things Network for Wokingham.