Aeris Mobility Suite Lets Partners Build Their Own IoT Mobility Services

'Our best fit in terms of differentiation is in those circumstances where the connectivity and IoT connection are mission crucial,' Aeris executive Steven Glapa says of the new Aeris Mobility Suite, which comes with everything partners need to start their own IoT mobility services.

IoT connectivity provider Aeris wants to make it easier for solution providers to build their own revenue- generating IoT mobility services, whether it's for fleet management or location tracking.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company recently unveiled Aeris Mobility Suite, an end-to-end IoT product suite that is primarily designed to help automotive OEMs build connected vehicle programs but can support many other IoT applications involving mobility.

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The Aeris Mobility Suite was unveiled at the same time Aeris and Volkswagen Group of America announced the formation of a joint venture called Ventric that will focus on building a connected vehicle program for Volkswagen brand vehicles in North America.

But while the Aeris Mobility Suite is being explicitly advertised as a way for automotive OEMs to build their own connected vehicle programs, Steven Glapa, vice president of product management at Aeris, said the new product suite can support any IoT application that involves a need to track mobility or any number of metrics for vehicles and devices out in the field.

"Our best fit in terms of differentiation is in those circumstances where the connectivity and IoT connection are mission crucial," Glapa told CRN in an interview.

One example is an "Uber for tractors" application that uses telematics and machine-learning algorithms to automatically track field work and supports simple billing. The suite can also be used to track usage of high-value, in-home medical devices that enables policy enforcement by insurers. Another application is for operational and policy compliance management of police forces and maintenance crews.

The suite consists of a mobility services platform that uses machine learning to provide smart recommendations for the device or vehicle, a mobility application platform that comes with prebuilt application features for connected car and fleet management use cases, a device platform for device management and messaging, a connectivity platform that connects services to 500 cellular networks across 180 counties, and a mobility edge platform for managing services.

Having a turnkey solution like the Aeris Mobility Suite means reducing operational complexity and accelerating the time to market for new services, according to the company. Other benefits include low-latency messaging, military-grade security and the ability to integrate with any cloud service.

But if all of that sounds like a lot, Glapa said individual components of the suite can be used separately, such as the company's cellular connectivity platform, or combined into various configurations.

"These ready-to-use, off-the-shelf capabilities can be applied quickly in 'aftermarket' applications—adding connectivity and knowledge-gathering functionality to things already manufactured or even in use, or in 'embedded' applications," he said.