On 1 April, the IoT company Alpha-Omega Technology opens a new online shop for the Helium network. The range includes hardware available for immediate delivery and selected products for integrations.
Schimberg and Berlin, 23 March 2022: Alpha-Omega Technology GmbH & Co. KG is an expert in IoT infrastructures and, with iot-shop.de, has been running the largest online shop for LPWAN products in the German-speaking region for more than five years. In addition to the LoRaWAN hardware for IoT solutions available there, from 1 April Alpha-Omega Technology sells products for the Helium network at Helium-Shop.eu. The range consists mainly of Helium gateways, the so-called hotspots, sensors for use in the Helium network, and accessories such as antennas and cables. Unlike other online retailers, Helium-Shop.eu does not rely on pre-orders but stocks only products that are available for immediate delivery. The shop is aimed at private individuals who want to run their own hotspot, but also at companies that base their business model on the Helium network, such as providers of starter kits. Helium is a new, fast-growing, decentralised blockchain network for IoT devices.
Over the past year, Alpha-Omega Technology received more and more enquiries about Helium hotspots via iot-shop.de. Through these enquiries the company also learned of the frustration of many customers who had pre-ordered hotspots from retailers and then waited months without delivery. "These observations led to our decision to professionalise the Helium network by providing expert support and selling only products that are actually available," explains Jan Bose, managing director of Alpha-Omega Technology GmbH & Co. KG. "From our position as the largest LPWAN shop in the German-speaking region, we bring a large and reliable network of suppliers and partners. In addition, our customers benefit from our consulting and project experience in the industrial sector."
Selected products for integrations
In addition to hotspots and accessories such as antennas and cables, Helium-Shop.eu will offer selected products such as sensors and actuators, for example those for which an integration template is available in the low-code platform Datacake . Datacake offers plug-and-play monitoring, notifications and data analysis for IoT devices. The platform can be used without programming skills. Datacake makes it easier for users to commission their own sensors, maintain the hardware, and monitor, analyse and control measured values. Helium users can thus read and control useful parameters on a user-friendly graphical dashboard.
In addition to hotspots and accessories, Helium-Shop.eu will offer selected products, for example those with an integration template for web applications such as Datacake.
Helium: The People’s Network and crypto mining
The Helium network goes back to an initiative by Shawn Fanning, Amir Haleem and Sean Carey. The network belongs to the public and grows in a decentralised way, without ownership rights held by a central authority. Anyone who wants to can join in and set up a Helium hotspot, which is why the network is also called “The People’s Network”. Costs and profits from commercial use are distributed among the individual participants with the help of blockchain technology. By connecting their gateways, the many, often private, hotspot operators gradually build a contiguous network independent of the large corporations. Companies in turn pay so-called data credits for using the infrastructure to transmit their sensor data in the Helium network. The costs are significantly lower than for transmission via mobile networks. The income from the sale of data credits is distributed in the cryptocurrency created specifically for this purpose, the Helium Network Token (HNT). In addition to the infrastructure for IoT devices, the network thus offers hotspot operators the opportunity to earn money with crypto mining.