Have a Question?

Digi WDS Helps Evoqua Deliver an Internet-Connected Water-Monitoring Solution for Commercial Applications

Evoqua
"Every promise Digi has made, they’ve delivered on – and that’s huge. They have reduced our risk, improved our product, and accelerated our timelines. You can’t ask for much more than that."

Erich Hoefferle, Engineering Manager - Evoqua

Every day, millions of people and thousands of companies rely on Evoqua Water Technologies to help them meet their clean water needs. The company’s cost-effective and reliable treatment systems and services ensure uninterrupted quantity and quality of water, enable regulatory and environmental compliance, increase efficiency through water reuse, and prepare customers for next-generation demands.

Business Challenge

Across a broad range of industries – from healthcare and food production to high-tech manufacturing and sterile processing – companies need a reliable supply of high-quality water that meets stringent standards for purity. Evoqua has responded to this need with water filtration, purification, and treatments that remove contaminants and prepare it for industrial uses.

Companies want more pure water, notes Scott Branum, Senior Manager for Digital Solutions. They also want data on what’s happening within their water supply.
Evoqua’s first-generation Water One monitoring system was a major step forward, gathering monitoring results and presenting them on Evoqua’s cloud-based Link-2-Site platform.

“Previously, we’d only offered simple pass/fail sensors,” Branum said. “So the first-generation data was helpful initially. However, customers soon told us they wanted to know the actual analog reading. They wanted pressure sensors and other data across all of their water systems. And they wanted greater functionality and connectivity built in. Essentially, they want worry-free water. But that type of product would be $2,000-5,000 per site using off-the-shelf technology.”

According to Erich Hoefferle, Engineering Manager, Evoqua was seeking to drive cost lower – not create a more expensive system. “At that time, it cost about $1,000 per site to provide water-quality monitoring,” he said. “We needed to get that price down significantly per site to succeed. We started working with a systems integrator who recommended Digi ConnectCore® 6UL system-on-module (SOM) for local processing and the Digi XBee® Cellular embedded modem.

Solution

The Evoqua team worked closely with Digi to define the needs and requirements and identify the right solution, which included development services from Digi WDS, in addition to the Connect Core 6UL SOM and Digi XBee Cellular module.
  • Digi WDS Product Development Services supplemented the Evoqua team with software, electrical, test, system and RF engineers to design electronics and software, build prototypes, verify, and release to manufacturing Evoqua’s solution. Digi WDS also designed, built and tested manufacturing test fixtures for Evoqua’s hardware.  Utilizing Digi ConnectCore and cellular Digi XBee radios, the Digi WDS team worked directly with Evoqua, making sure at every step of the way that system requirements were met and the correct solution was developed.
  • The Digi ConnectCore 6UL is an ultra-compact and highly integrated SOM solution based on the NXP/Freescale i.MX6 Cortex-A9 processor family. With fully pin-compatible single-/dual-/quad-core variants and processor speeds up to 1.2 GHz, the ConnectCore 6UL offers a future-proof platform solution with scalable performance, pre-certified wireless connectivity with 802.11a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0, including Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE).
  • The Digi XBee Cellular CAT 1 LTE embedded modems provide a simple path to 4G connectivity and the power of edge computing. The modem is FCC/IC, PTCRB and AT&T certified, which reduces certification cost, complexity, and risk.

“We liked the fact that Digi has a wide variety of connectivity options with the Digi XBee – cellular, 900 MHz, and Cat M – across multiple carriers,” said Branum. “Digi is investing heavily in these products, so we’re confident they’ll remain current and well-supported. Since our devices can have a field life of 10 years, we liked the stability of Digi’s product lines. With the synergy of a single supplier, ConnectCore 6UL made sense, too. And with the development boards they provided, we could get underway quickly.”

“Digi’s focus is on helping customers like us add IoT functionality – not trying to wrap all of their devices into one vertically integrated solution,” said Hoefferle. “Some competing providers offer products that are only tied to their portal – that wasn’t the direction we wanted. They understood our cost objectives and our product goals.”

As the design of the second version of Water One began, Evoqua encountered some difficulties with its integration partner, which experienced employee turnover and other shortcomings. “We quickly realized that integration partner wasn’t a good fit,” Hoefferle said. “So we began to evaluate our options. That’s when we thought, ‘Who better than the maker of the SOM?’ So we changed directions and began to work with Digi WDS Product Development Services to perform the development and integration.”

Results

“We view Digi WDS as our hardware design partner,” said Branum. “They’re a great group of engineers to work with, and we avoided over-taxing our own internal hardware resources.”

Digi WDS helped Evoqua accelerate the timeline by working quickly to build 50 pre-production boards for Water One. The two-board solution uses ConnectCore 6UL at the edge to compute values using proprietary algorithms to calculate water quality, report flows, monitor pressures, and forecast when tanks will require replenishment and removal of contaminants.

The Digi XBee Cellular modem transmits this data to a central Evoqua portal where customers can access the data 24x7. Digi also worked with Evoqua’s contract manufacturer to create automated functional testing suites that ensure prototype boards work as designed.

“Digi has been the smarter, lower-risk decision for our solution,” said Hoefferle. “We had a lot of experience with off-the-shelf devices to recognize that we wanted a pre-certified solution to eliminate those headaches – and Digi provides that. With pin-compatible designs, we can adapt as cellular technology changes. For long-life devices like ours, that’s a real advantage, because we don’t have to worry about field upgrades.

“More importantly, every promise Digi has made, they’ve delivered on – and that’s huge. They have reduced our risk, improved our product, and accelerated our timelines. You can’t ask for much more than that.”

Digi WDS system engineers and project managers ensure the requirements and system architecture reflect the proper solution for the business. The WDS team works directly with the customer team to manage schedules, discuss risks and tradeoffs, and document work progress to accelerate development and deliver ahead of schedule.

Get Our Field Guide
Learn About Five Ways to Improve IoT Designs

Related Content

Earth Day 2021: Doing Our Part for a Greener Future Earth Day 2021: Doing Our Part for a Greener Future Digi’s goal and environmental approach is to foster responsibility in daily operations and to meet or exceed the compliance... READ BLOG Nobel Water Systems With Digi Connect Sensor+, Nobel Water Systems Helps Water Districts Monitor Status and Performance, Prevent Leaks, Reduce Costs Nobel Water Systems’ water monitoring solutions help utilities and water districts gain actionable insights from customer water... READ STORY EOS International EOS International Deploys Scalable Water-Monitoring Solution Across Nicaragua and Honduras EOS has deployed a remote water quality monitoring pilot in a rural Nicaraguan community, with plans to scale up to hundreds of... READ STORY Custom Gateways and Routers: When, Why and How Custom Gateways and Routers: When, Why and How Developing a custom gateway or router for an IoT application can be the right approach under certain circumstances such as when... READ BLOG Cellular Design Considerations for an Optimal IoT Strategy Cellular Design Considerations for an Optimal IoT Strategy IoT developers have access to a wide variety of cloud platforms, embedded devices, sensors, and connectivity options. One of... READ BLOG Enolgas USA Inc. Enolgas USA Enters “Smart Home” Market with Water Security System Enolgas USA found that apartment building and home owners can save enormous amounts of money in excess costs due to undetected... READ STORY What Is the Smart Grid and How Is It Enabled by IoT? What Is the Smart Grid and How Is It Enabled by IoT? The “smart grid” is the next generation electrical network - updated with communications technology and connectivity to drive... READ BLOG Digi Wireless Design Services Digi Wireless Design Services Digi Wireless Design Services provides a complete range of consultation, design and development services for IoT product... WATCH VIDEO Open Source Licenses and Applications on Embedded Linux: a Practical Viewpoint Open Source Licenses and Applications on Embedded Linux: a Practical Viewpoint Developers of proprietary software are often leery of embedded Linux platforms, due to the implications of open source licenses... READ BLOG IoT in Smart Grid Applications for Smart Cities: DistribuTECH 2020 Take-Aways IoT in Smart Grid Applications for Smart Cities: DistribuTECH 2020 Take-Aways DistribuTECH 2020 has come and gone until next year, and it's always great to look back on a phenomenal event and talk about... READ BLOG Going Global with Your Cellular Deployment Going Global with Your Cellular Deployment As the Internet of Things becomes increasingly popular, more companies are looking to monitor and track their assets across the... READ BLOG Development Accelerators: Digi Embedded Yocto Software Extensions Development Accelerators: Digi Embedded Yocto Software Extensions The increasing complexity of embedded systems makes delivering embedded products to the market on time and on budget a complex task. By choosing a system-on-module (SOM), you've taken the first step in reducing complexity and development time. VIEW GUIDE How to Choose the Right Antenna for Your IoT Application How to Choose the Right Antenna for Your IoT Application Antennas come in many shapes and sizes, for many different uses. Some are attached externally to the product for the correct... READ BLOG Digi Wireless Design Services and Digi XBee Help Turn Soccer into a Smart Sport Digi Wireless Design Services and Digi XBee Help Turn Soccer into a Smart Sport In addition to getting a prototype to the event in less than a week, the system itself needed to be usable by an audience whose... READ BLOG Wireless Design Services Wireless Design Services Digi wireless design services helps companies solve business problems by embedding wireless technologies to create innovative M2M products Vium Vium Improves the Success of Drug Development for Pharmaceutical and Biotech Companies Vium helps labs improve safety, enhance their ability to test drug compounds, and better identify relevant disease biomarkers... READ STORY IoT Software and Services IoT Software and Services Remote management and support services, wireless design and engineering, IoT consulting, certification support and training VIEW PRODUCTS Current and Future State of Cellular and LPWAN Current and Future State of Cellular and LPWAN Learn about the future of LTE-M, NB-IoT and 5G, and the applications that will make use of these emerging networks, from IoT... RECORDED WEBINAR Digi Helps Summit Improve Groundwater Protection And Management Summit Envirosolutions is an environmental consulting firm that uses sophisticated information systems to gather and evaluate... READ STORY The Future of Water is Wireless The Future of Water is Wireless Delivering IoT connectivity solutions where failure is not an option VIEW PDF Digi XBee Cellular LTE Cat 1 Digi XBee Cellular LTE Cat 1 Digi XBee Cellular LTE Cat 1 embedded modems provide OEMs with a simple way to integrate cellular connectivity into their devices VIEW PRODUCT Digi ConnectCore 6UL Digi ConnectCore 6UL Intelligent and connected embedded system-on-module based on the NXP i.MX6 UL, with turnkey Linux software support in a stamp-sized form factor VIEW PRODUCT Embedded Systems Embedded Systems A full range of embedded solutions, including modules and SBCs as well as software and remote management capabilities VIEW PRODUCTS