{"id":217034,"date":"2024-06-14T11:45:39","date_gmt":"2024-06-14T03:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grab.com\/sg\/?post_type=editorial&p=217034"},"modified":"2025-02-26T18:32:47","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T10:32:47","slug":"from-map-making-cameras-to-food-lockers-grabs-global-iot-team-develops-smart-devices-in-house","status":"publish","type":"editorial","link":"https:\/\/www.grab.com\/sg\/inside-grab\/stories\/from-map-making-cameras-to-food-lockers-grabs-global-iot-team-develops-smart-devices-in-house\/","title":{"rendered":"From map-making cameras to food lockers: Grab\u2019s global IoT team develops smart devices in-house"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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What comes to mind when you think of the term Internet-of-Things, or IoT? Perhaps futuristic, smart home products: Fridges that order groceries on your behalf. Ambient lights that adjust to your mood. But IoT is much more than that, and examples of IoT devices that make every day life better in unexpected ways can already be found all around us.<\/p>\n

Simply put, IoT refers to devices with processing capabilities. They are usually equipped with sensors and software, and share data between each other and a central system through the Internet. <\/p>\n

IoT in action<\/h5>\n

If you are a Grab user, you might have already experienced IoT in action. Grab\u2019s suite of self-developed IoT products are found in driver-partners\u2019 cars, merchant-partners\u2019 stores, and even on riders\u2019 helmets.<\/p>\n

Grab has its own IoT team, which designs and makes products that help improve Grab\u2019s services. This results in greater cost-efficiency, better safety, and overall greater satisfaction from partners and users.<\/p>\n

Grab\u2019s IoT team consists of about 30 persons, and is involved in all key areas of product design and development, including industrial design, hardware, software, quality assurance, supply chain management, and AI capabilities.<\/p>\n

This diverse team has offices in Beijing and Shenzhen in China, As well as Singapore, and gets additional data science support from Cluj in Romania. This allows the team to tap on the unique advantages of each of these cities. <\/p>\n

Shenzhen, for example, is close to the hardware supply chain and factories which allows the IoT team to quickly iterate on manufacturing processes, changes in materials, and other tweaks to ensure the final product is made to meet Grab\u2019s needs. Meanwhile, Cluj has machine learning experts who work on adding useful AI features to Grab\u2019s IoT devices.<\/p>\n

Aside from having features that can\u2019t be found in off-the-shelf third-party solutions, and being less costly to deploy, Grab\u2019s IoT products also shine when it comes to safety and privacy.<\/p>\n

For starters, the software that\u2019s integrated into these IoT devices is created in-house, contributed primarily by the Beijing, Shenzhen and Cluj teams, so they know exactly what\u2019s happening with regards to both hardware and software. And in the process, the IoT team consults closely with the Legal, Safety, and relevant local teams to ensure all regulatory requirements are met, including safety measures that may be relevant to specific countries in Southeast Asia. <\/p>\n

Examples of IoT devices: Map-making camera<\/h5>\n

The development process of an IoT device at Grab starts with a phase of problem-discovery and ideation.<\/p>\n

\u201cSolving the right problems is critically important for the IoT team,\u201d said Hou Shuangquan, Grab\u2019s Head of Product, IoT. \u201cThis will allow us to make devices that result in cost savings and higher efficiency.\u201d<\/p>\n

One problem the IoT team observed was that third-party map-making cameras are expensive, have few features, and are not itailor-made for the Southeast Asian market. It then developed the map-making camera KartaCam that allows Grab to create maps with better, more accurate and updated data, at lower cost.<\/p>\n

The KartaCam device has gone through several interactions and its latest version, KartaCam 2, can be mounted on motorcycles, car roofs, or even backpacks. KartaCam is an IoT device example<\/a> that contributed greatly to Grab\u2019s map-making capabilities.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Grab's mapmaking camera KartaCam has evolved over time <\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Examples of IoT devices: Smart mobility<\/h5>\n

Furthermore, working closely with other departments, the IoT team created KartaDongle, a GPS product that\u2019s four times more accurate than in-phone GPS.<\/p>\n

KartaDongle is mounted inside cars. Typically, these are vehicles from Grab\u2019s car rental fleet, GrabRentals. Information from KartaDongle flows into improving vehicle location accuracy, GrabMaps, and driver allocation <\/p>\n

Furthermore, this example of an IoT device<\/a> in smart mobility serves as a vehicle\u2019s on-board diagnostics equipment, capturing useful data like driving speed. It can also tell, in real-time, where it\u2019s raining by detecting the vehicle’s wiper status.<\/p>\n

All these data points give teams like Grab\u2019s Geo team and GrabRental the ability to manage fleets better and to be more cost-efficient, and consequently boost earnings for driver-partners.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Grab\u2019s growing suite of in-house IoT solutions<\/h5>

There\u2019s much more in the works at Grab\u2019s IoT lab. For instance, working with the Safety team at Grab, the IoT team is currently working on its next in-house IoT device, a dashcam that will help make rides even more secure and reliable.<\/span><\/p>

Grab\u2019s IoT team also worked with multiple stakeholders on a solution to simplify food deliveries at crowded locations such as office towers or apartment complexes: smart food cabinets. It’s currently piloting these cabinets at various locations.<\/span><\/p>

These products illustrate how the Grab IoT team brings together its important working principles to create smart, cost-effective solutions that save time.<\/span><\/p>

Hou concluded: \u201cWe have many other innovative ideas that we want to turn into real IoT products, and all these come from real problems we have gotten feedback about. The end goal is to increase efficiency for Grab, partners, as well as for merchants who provide their products through Grab.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"parent":180237,"menu_order":0,"template":"grab21-default","acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grab.com\/sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/editorial\/217034"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grab.com\/sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/editorial"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grab.com\/sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/editorial"}],"version-history":[{"count":46,"href":"https:\/\/www.grab.com\/sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/editorial\/217034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":223709,"href":"https:\/\/www.grab.com\/sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/editorial\/217034\/revisions\/223709"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grab.com\/sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/editorial\/180237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grab.com\/sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}