Australian company launches card-based personal security device that combines u-blox Honeycomb and GNSS technology

     U-blox, a global leader in wireless and positioning modules and chips, and MCM Electronics, an Australian company specializing in the security alert industry, announced that the two companies have teamed up to launch LONEworkr, a new personal security device. The personal tracker and emergency distress device, which is the size of a name card, is designed to track solo workers and quickly provide location information in the event of an emergency.

     James Neville, Director of MCM Electronics, said: "We needed to provide our customers with a reliable and durable personal emergency locator that could help them monitor the status of individual workers. u-blox's unique ability to combine cellular and GNSS positioning technologies and provide a product that combines quality, performance and durability was the perfect choice."

     LONEworkr is very lightweight, weighing only 75g and measuring 96 x 71 x 14.4mm, with a 3.75G GSM modem solution built in to provide up to six-band HSPA+ and four-band GSM/EDGE data transmission capabilities. It can also receive GPS/QZSS, GLONASS and Beidou satellite signals simultaneously. It can transmit alarm and location information to the monitoring center, so that the monitoring center can further contact the device to confirm the authenticity of emergency information and take action.

     "We are very excited to partner with MCM Electronics and at u-blox we are committed to combining different technologies to develop simple and easy-to-use solutions to support our customers," said Pietro Sbisa, Business Development Manager for u-blox Australia & New Zealand. "The professional-grade modules built into LONEworkr follow u-blox's nested design concept to maintain size and software continuity. This allows customers to easily upgrade their products with each new generation of u-blox wireless modules without requiring any PCB design changes, thus simplifying the possibility of future product transfers to LTE modems. Easy upgrades between u-blox products maximize customer investment, simplify logistics, and significantly reduce time-to-market."