LONEworkr is designed to monitor lone and remote workers, using u-blox technologies
Thalwil, Switzerland and Penrith, Australia – July 7, 2016 – MCM Electronics Pty Ltd., an Australian
company specializing in the security alarm industry, has announced the launch of a new personal safety
device, developed in collaboration with u-blox (SIX:UBXN), a global leader in wireless and positioning
modules and chips. LONEworkr, a people tracker and SOS device in a card holder format, is designed to
track lone and isolated workers in order to locate them in the event of an emergency.
"We needed to offer a reliable and stable personal emergency location device to our customers, to allow
for monitoring of isolated workers. u-blox, with its unique combination of cellular and GNSS positioning
technology, and the quality, performance and robustness of its products, was the right choice," explains
James Neville, Director of MCM Electronics.
Very light (75g) and ultra-compact (96 x 71 x 14.4 mm), LONEworkr combines a 3.75G GSM modem
solution providing up to six-band HSPA+ and quad-band GSM/EDGE data transmission with a concurrent
reception of GPS/QZSS, GLONASS and BeiDou. It can send an alarm and its location to a Monitoring
Center (MC), which will then call the device to verify the alarm and escalate whether the emergency is
genuine.
"It was very exciting to collaborate with MCM Electronics, as we at u-blox are committed to support our
customers by combining technologies for easy-to- use solutions," explains Pietro Sbisa, Business
Development Manager, u-blox Australia & New Zealand. "The u-blox professional grade modules
embedded in LONEworkr follow the u-blox “nested design” philosophy: to maintain form factor and
software continuity. This enables customers to easily upgrade their products with each new generation of
u-blox wireless modules, without having to change the PCB designs. In this case it can simplify a possible
later transition to an LTE modem. The easy migration between u-blox products contributes to a
maximized investment, simplified logistics and drastically reduced time-to- market," he adds.
The u-blox LISA-U200 UMTS/HSPA cellular module and the CAM-M8Q M8 concurrent GNSS antenna
module are currently embedded in LONEWorkr. Migration to LTE technology and the addition of short
range radio capabilities are planned.