Waterloo Region taps eleven-x for IoT water monitoring

When Waterloo Region wanted a better way to monitor the water supply for its 570,000 residents, it didn’t have to go far to find it.

The municipality found what it needed at eleven-x Inc., a Waterloo-based startup that operates Canada’s only nationwide network especially for connected Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

The company announced on Thursday that, after a successful pilot project, Waterloo Region will deploy eleven-x’s technology to monitor water levels and temperature at its wells.

For the Region, it means water data will be collected automatically and communicated in real time every hour – a significant improvement over its previous system of collecting the data manually every quarter from its data-logging devices.

By connecting eleven-x’s interface to those existing devices rather than buying new ones, the region will spend less while getting more data more quickly.

“The pilot program highlighted the improvements that this solution can bring to our service,” said Nancy Kodousek, Director of Water Services at the Region. “The eleven-x solution reduces our operating costs and provides timely access to our groundwater monitoring data. Knowing what is happening on an hourly basis enables us to optimize this program and the supply of drinking water.”

Eleven-x, which employs 30 people and was founded by former BlackBerry employees in 2014, estimates the technology purchased by the Region will pay for itself “in just a couple of years,” or about a quarter of the time it would have taken for the Region to see a return on an investment in new data-loggers, the company said.

The Region’s deployment of eleven-x’s technology for water monitoring is the first such deployment in Canada, if not North America, and hopefully the first of many from the company’s perspective.

“Water supply is a key resource for all cities and municipalities in Canada,” said Dan Mathers, the company’s President and CEO. “Efficiently monitoring that water supply is a key requirement to ensure the continued sustainability of that resource. Being able to provide a solution to provide fast and accurate data to optimize this process for municipalities is something that we are very proud of.”