The ALTA^® Soil Moisture Sensor—One of the World's Most Innovative Technologies in the Global AgTech Industry

Salt Lake City—August 28, 2023—Monnit recently won the 2023 AgTech Breakthrough Irrigation Innovation of the Year Award for its ALTA^® Soil Moisture Sensor.

The annual AgTech Breakthrough Awards program recognizes innovation in agricultural and food technologies around the globe. Monnit won the award because its ALTA Soil Moisture Sensor measures the technically advanced and valuable condition of soil water tension, which helps you optimize precision irrigation scheduling in smart agriculture operations.

"Beyond our customer's adoption, this is excellent third-party validation of the effectiveness of our ALTA Soil Moisture Sensor in smart irrigation and agriculture," said Monnit Founder and CEO Brad Walters. "We appreciate the AgTech Breakthrough experts' critical evaluation and recognition of our smart watering solution. Overwatering and underwatering are significant concerns when balancing water conservation with healthy crops. This sensor triggers water's effective, efficient use by easily connecting soil water to the Internet of Things (IoT)."

Stimulate Growing Operations' Long-Term Sustainability

The ALTA Soil Moisture Sensor sends data to your mobile device and PC so you can know how much, when, and where to irrigate crops. If water or temperatures deviate from preset parameters, you get instant text, email, or voice call alerts. The sensor works in tandem with the ALTA XL® IoT Gateway and iMonnit® Monitoring App.

Measure soil water tension in units of pressure (0 to 240 centibar (cb) or kilopascal (kPa)) and temperature (-40°C to 125°C/-40°F to 257°F) using an innovative resistive granular matrix element and a thermistor-based temperature element. There's a science to measuring soil water tension; both sensor elements give you the data to help you make the right irrigation decisions.

Why Measure Soil Water Tension?

This sensor measures—matric water potential—or soil water tension, the best water availability indicator. Unlike other sensors, the moisture element works as a root, measuring water tension in its hydrophilic fabric-covered matrix material rather than the surrounding soil.

Sensors that only measure soil water volume can be limited because they can't tell you how water moves and its availability. As an electrical resistance sensor, it monitors the energy state of water that explains water movement, including the energy that a plant exerts to draw available water from the soil.

The Impact of Soil Water Potential and Temperature

When you measure water potential and temperature together, you can tell more accurately if your crops are healthy or stressed. Combining these elements, the ALTA Soil Moisture Sensor can help increase yield and mitigate water stress and nutrient leaching. You can also use the temperature element's reading for soil moisture temperature compensation, so you don't need different water readings if the temperature changes.

A Proven IoT Platform

The sensor runs on Monnit's wireless IoT platform using a proprietary combination of hardware and software to collect and send data efficiently and securely. With a long-range, multi-frequency radio and flexible microcontroller, it quickly deploys in multiple AgTech applications.

Now the leading standard for cellular IoT networks, 4G LTE moves data packets faster for a more streamlined mobile Internet experience. As the demand increases for IoT sensor data to be processed, aggregated, and transmitted in real time, 4G LTE technologies fulfill this need.

ALTA XL IoT Gateways and the iMonnit^® IoT Monitoring and Alert System collaborate to connect and configure up to 100 ALTA Sensors each over the Internet and on low-power, wide-area networks (LPWANs), making their data accessible virtually anytime, anywhere. If user-defined conditions change, the gateways are instrumental in sending sensor notifications via text, email, or voice call.

Additional key features of the Soil Moisture Sensor:

• Durable in many soils and both hot and freezing temperatures
  • Corrosion-resistant stainless steel
  • Internally compensated for salinity levels
• Easier to install and use than traditional tensiometers
• Frequency-Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) for greater signal interference tolerance
  • Impairment immunity up to 2,000 feet from physical obstructions, external wireless radio frequencies, and electromagnetic interference (EMI)
  • Up to one-mile wireless range at ground level, without obstructions
• Encrypt-RF® Security (Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange + AES-128 Cipher Blocker Chaining (CBC) for sensor data messages)
• Logs up to 4,000 readings if the gateway connection is lost

About Monnit Corporation

The origin story of the Internet of Things (IoT) begins with Monnit. Before our inception in 2010, we were already at the forefront of embedding technology into machines and devices to make them talk, delivering valuable data to business leaders. Monnit Remote Monitoring Solutions for nearly any industry use case have delivered 39+ billion data points in more than 85 countries for 52,000 customers. Monnit's 80+ IoT sensors remotely monitor many conditions like temperature, light, humidity, water, vibration, pressure, and more. You can analyze data using iMonnit cloud software and get alerts via email, text, or call when our sensors detect a change you need to know.

About AgTech Breakthrough

Part of Tech Breakthrough, a leading market intelligence and recognition platform for global technology innovation and leadership, the AgTech Breakthrough Awards program is devoted to honoring excellence in agricultural & food technologies, services, companies, and products around the world. The AgTech Breakthrough Awards program provides a forum for public recognition around the achievements of AgTech companies and solutions in categories including farm management, indoor farming, IoT and robotics, FoodTech, analytics, and more. For more information, visit AgTechBreakthrough.com.

Tech Breakthrough LLC does not endorse any vendor, product, or service depicted in our recognition programs and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with award designations. Tech Breakthrough LLC recognition consists of the opinions of Tech Breakthrough LLC organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Tech Breakthrough LLC disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this recognition program, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.