Just like bb7’s WiHive, DevCon will be buzzing with activity

When Madison, WI product development firm bb7 wanted to get the word out that it offers more than just design, engineering and prototyping services they chose a rather different and interesting marketing approach: the company installed a beehive in its backyard. The colony produces honey, which bb7 then distributes in recycled or recyclable vials of its own design. 

Like other beekeepers bb7 has lost previous colonies to the recently increasing phenomenon of colony collapse, which is putting bee populations at risk. Colony collapse disorder has been affecting more than 40% of all bee hives in recent years, up from less than 20% just two decades ago. Bees are pollinators and many food crops need pollination, so this epidemic has put our commercial food supplies at risk. And the problem goes beyond food crops; without bees many flowering plants would not be able to reproduce at a sufficiently high rate.

It occurred to bb7 that perhaps they could help by tracking data to give researchers some insight into the reasons behind the problem. So they created a beehive monitoring system using Renesas Synergy technology with the ability to exchange information anywhere you can access the Cloud.  The company will initially monitor temperature, humidity and frequency of the bee buzz. The “WiHive” demo, on display at DevCon 2015, will show not only the capabilities of the Synergy system, but also how it reduces product development time and effort. bb7 is using the integrated operating system on Synergy to allow seamless communication with the Cloud.  The multi-thread environment enables parallel development of the hive monitoring features and allows for future expansion. 

In the past, beehives were primarily monitored manually by beekeepers.  bb7 is aware of one automated beehive monitoring system available in Europe that is capable of monitoring humidity, temperature, audio, and hive weight, but it is expensive and bb7 says its WiHive offers some features not available in the European solution. The WiHive is not intended for sale; it was developed solely to learn more about beehive activity.  

If you want to learn more, not just about bees but about cutting-edge innovations that will improve your design skills and help drive your organization’s success, join us at Devcon 2015 on October 12.