Unique IOT items found at the Cisco Innovation Centre in Toronto

The Mayor of the City of Toronto John Tory found the digital fire hydrant on display at the newly opened Cisco Innovation Centre in Toronto fascinating. The Mayor told a story of a time when a Toronto fire-hydrant was frozen and rendered useless to fire-fighters trying to control a blaze. Tory added that a fire hydrant commanded and remotely monitored would provide many benefits to the Toronto Fire Service.

The digital fire hydrant was just one of many Internet of Things items on display at Cisco Canada‘s Innovation Centre in downtown Toronto. Click on the next slide to find out more about the digital fire hydrant as well as the E-bike, intelligent lighting, IP-enabled door locks connected to the Internet, brain scanning and more. (This Photo is Courtesy of Cisco Canada)

The digital fire hydrants are made by Waterloo, Ont.-based Terepac Corp.

Terepac was selected by Cisco Canada to showcase Canadian leadership in the Internet of Things (IoT). But they are not necessarily called fire hydrants. Terepac CEO Ric Asselstine referred to the product as the ONE Machine and ONE Water solutions.

Terepac’s ONE solution is a secure combination of edge of network sensing device and cloud-based software. The ONE Water solution is a municipal water monitoring system that uses a fire hydrant insert retrofitted into new and existing infrastructure in order to remotely provide municipalities with insights into the city’s water system.

ONE Machine is a magnetically-attached wireless sensing solution that allows facilities management to remotely monitor capital equipment.

Interesting factoid: More than 250 million E-bikes are ridden in China. One of the areas Cisco Canada is focusing on is providing physical and virtual labs for proof of concept in areas such as healthcare, financial services and urban innovation.

In the urban section on display was the WeBike, an electronic bicycle that sports a custom-built telemetry system that captures data and stores it in the cloud.

Brain scanning was on display at the Cisco Innovation Centre. Here is Robert Fox, healthcare innovator at Cisco Canada showing off the Emotiv headset.

Emotiv is a 5 channel wireless headset that records brainwaves and translates them into data. Fox was demonstrating how a user could move a box on the notebook screen using the mind. But that wasn’t the only brain related IOT item showcased. Click to the next slide to see the Brain Grid.

The Toronto-based Brain Grid Corp. has unveiled a wireless Internet gateway called “Sentroller”. This IOT product is not for the brain but to enable solar energy system providers the opportunity to offer a cheaper way of monitoring service for any smaller scale and/or remote photovoltaic power station. The Sentroller is available starting at $4.00 per month, per system.

What you are looking at is an IP-Enabled Power over Ethernet door lock connected to a Cisco LAN that can capture data. Made by Assa Abloy, this door lock supports mobile access so that a smartphone with NFC to gain entry to what’s behind the door. It can also prevent someone from gaining entry.

Talk about your 2-in-1 devices. Another Toronto company called OTI Lumionics displayed a thin OLED desk lamp at the Cisco Innovation Centre that doubles as a smartphone charger. Called Aerelight, the user can touch to control the brightness of the OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) light. Priced at just under $300, the Aerelight can eliminate bulbs and cords through the use of a light emitting panel.