Participants in the 2022 African Otter Trail Run. Image c/o African Otter Trail Run

Sigfox and Bosch have partnered to deliver an advanced internet-of-things (IoT) tracking solution for this year’s Otter African Trail Run, one of the top events on South Africa’s trail running calendar.

“To better track runners and dispatch assistance if needed, the Sigfox/Bosch system will equip the top runners with Bosch asset trackers connected to the Sigfox South Africa network, which will be boosted by a mobile repeater along the route and an antenna mounted on a boat 5km offshore,” the companies said in a statement on Wednesday.

The tracking system will help improve runner safety on what is described as the “Grail of Trail”, which takes runners along a 42km route through “dense indigenous forest, along cliff edges and over jagged rocks”. The trail has four river crossings and 11 climbs – three of them exceeding 100m.

Gerry Geel, head of research, development and sales for Bosch New Business, said that although Bosch asset tracker technology has been used on the Otter African Trail Run before, the enhanced Sigfox network in South Africa has allowed the system to scale to 30 participants as opposed to the 10 that were tracked using a GSM network previously.

The South African-made asset trackers are dustproof and watertight. They are used in high-value asset tracking, agriculture and transport. Their design makes them suitable to the rugged terrain the runners will be up against. Each runner will be tracked in real time with an accuracy of up to 5m.

“The system will support security, safety and analytics, even in steep ravines where network coverage is usually very challenging. Where IoT asset tracking devices usually connect at longer intervals, we are pushing the IoT envelope to deliver live tracking, and comparing the accuracy of Sigfox against GSM, which will be a good test for us,” said Geel.