Vodafone Portugal Foundation, in a partnership with the Portuguese Navy - ISN (Search and Rescue department) challenged us to provide live weather data from several beaches along the Portuguese coast. The idea was to have this data feed an iOS APP  allowing beach goers to know in advance the real weather conditions at their favourite place. Together with the standard temperature, humidity and wind data we pushed the project a little further and came up with a system that included the deployment of buoys on the water.

These buoys are measuring water quality parameters and, of course, water temperature.

The whole system feeds the data through Vodafone Portugal GPRS network to a central server which then makes it available to the end users through the universal iOS APP and also through a Web app / Webpage.  The buoys can be equipped with additional sensors and electronics to provide real time information about water turbidity and wave information.

Another key parameter that is measured is the UV Index. We believe that showing end users how this parameter changes along the day will help to educate them on the dangers of extreme sun exposure that has been demonstrated to significantly increase skin cancer risks.

This project was developed in partnership by CEC and UAVision which together built from scratch the buoys, software, transmission systems and iOS Apps. Vodafone Foundation and the Portuguese Navy through ISN were the key entities coordinating and executing all authorizations, placement of the buoys, financing and promotion.

Thank You to everyone involved, Vodafone and ISN.