IoT-enabled Asset Monitoring in 2025: Real-Time Insights across Industries and Use Cases

The IoT asset monitoring market is booming, and the number of devices the number of devices is expected to grow from 11.2 million in 2022 to 181.4 million in 2032 according to Transforma Insights. Despite this growth, many businesses still struggle with misplaced assets, inefficient processes, and a lack of real-time data, resulting in lost opportunities and higher operational costs.

IoT asset monitoring solves these problems by giving you real-time visibility into your assets and usage, so you can streamline processes, reduce losses and improve sustainability. As adoption grows, those that adopt IoT monitoring will get ahead, and those that don’t will get left behind in a fast-changing market. 

Eco-Influence: Bins and Containers Monitoring

Industries such as waste management, construction, and temperature-controlled storage are increasingly adopting IoT technology to track materials like lead-acid batteries and spoil, monitor equipment usage, and manage cold chain logistics. Digital Matter together with 1NCE work on creating products that fit most of the use cases across bins and containers tracking. Let’s go deeper into some of the success stories: 

Lead-Acid Battery Disposal with Battery Rescue 

Battery Rescue, a provider of safe disposal solutions for lead-acid batteries, uses Digital Matter IoT devices and 1NCE software and connectivity to manage its closed container pool system. These devices provide data like geofence alerts which notify the team when disposal crates leave a site. This alert then triggers automatic dispatch of replacement crates when inventory falls below threshold levels. The devices also have low-power modes during inactivity and high-frequency tracking when movement is detected. This technology allows you to receive efficient monitoring with minimal power consumption. 

John Holland: Spoil Removal Monitoring 

John Holland, a leading engineering, contracting, and services company in Australia and New Zealand, manages large volumes of spoil (e.g., dirt, rubble, and contaminated waste) on its infrastructure and rail projects. Environmental regulations require spoil to be transported to approved disposal sites, so precise monitoring is critical for compliance. To mitigate risks such as illegal dumping, missed reuse opportunities, and delayed reporting, John Holland deployed Digital Matter IoT devices to track spoil movement. These IoT devices provided GPS location tracking and tip detection which logged load and unload events and geofencing detected tipping outside approved areas. John Holland was able to stay compliant with environmental regulations, reduce risks of unauthorized actions and delays, and minimize waste via better logistics and monitoring. 

Equipment Safety with IoT Tracking Devices

Construction sites have high-value equipment and are vulnerable to theft and unauthorized use, making it integral for construction companies to have an asset monitoring solution.  

Foresight Intelligence utilizes Digital Matter’s Edge devices with 1NCE connectivity to provide precise construction asset tracking solutions. These devices track and manage heavy construction equipment such as excavators, jackhammers, and other rigorous heavy equipment. Digital Matter’s rugged battery-powered devices enable location tracking, asset utilization monitoring, run-hour tracking, theft prevention, and impact detection.  

These features ensure real-time visibility into operations, in the most demanding environments. Digital Matter Edge devices use GNSS, Wi-Fi AP MAC Address Scanning, and Cell Tower location Fallback, to ensure seamless indoor and outdoor tracking. This integration allows Foresight Intelligence to provide a reliable and cost-effective IoT solution for the construction and heavy equipment rental industry. 

Temperature Controlled Storage Powered with IoT

Temperature monitoring is key to managing cold chains where up to 20% of food and 13% of pharmaceuticals are lost globally during transportation, resulting in huge waste. In a 2023 study, McKinsey estimates $600 billion of food is wasted annually, while KIWI Technology says current inefficiencies in cold chains could feed 950 million people. 

Digital Matter data loggers and BLE sensors support a completely battery-powered deployment for fast, scalable monitoring of refrigeration complexes. BLE tags can last for many years on a single battery and can be installed in a matter of minutes. The Hawk data logger designed by Digital Matter can detect and report on over 1000 tags at once. This enables for an entire floor to be supported by a single gateway device. The Hawk provides a cost-effective and scalable solution for businesses of any size. It also supports digital switches, meaning that data from a sensor can be used to electronically activate something else on site. This could be actions such as opening/closing a door. 

Livestock Monitoring: Alpes-eco Story

Livestock theft and resource mismanagement is a global problem for farmers. In South Africa, livestock theft cost farmers $81 million in 2021, while Venezuela loses 700,000 cattle annually or 7% of its total cattle population. 

To overcome these challenges, Alpes-éco deployed Digital Matter IoT tracking devices powered with 1NCE software and connectivity across over 100 livestock and Livestock Guardian Dogs. GPS and geofencing provided real-time location data and virtual boundaries, sending alerts if animals went outside designated areas. Inactivity timers flagged health concerns or predation if animals were stationary for too long.  

The devices monitored daily energy expenditure and activity intensity to help farmers detect anomalies and optimize resource use. BLE-enabled collars on lead animals acted as data gateways for Bluetooth tags on the rest of the herd to track across rough terrain. Digital Matter devices have been used with a collar attachment to track both domesticated and wild animals for conservation monitoring purposes and wellness. This generates heatmaps to find out where animals are congregating at different times of the day. Geofences can also be used to determine if animals aren’t where they are supposed to be.  

Geofence breaches and inactivity alerts reduce theft, predation, and accidents, while optimized grazing routes and resource allocation enhance productivity. Real-time health monitoring allows timely interventions, improving animal care. Over time, better grazing practices and resource management contribute to long-term land health and sustainability. 

Vehicle Monitoring: Overcoming the Challenges

The rise of gray fleets and subcontractors has brought new challenges to fleet management. In many cases, the vehicles are not owned by the fleet manager, and permanent hardwired installations are not possible or acceptable to the vehicle owner. While OBDII cable installations are a less invasive option, even that level of intervention can be deemed too much. 
Battery-powered IoT monitoring devices are the solution, providing GPS movement-based trip tracking and accelerometer-triggered telematics data without permanent installations. These devices can be deployed on vehicles during a contract or workday and returned to the fleet manager without hassle at the end of the assignment. In this way the following benefits can be achieved: theft prevention, minimized fuel use, & proactive maintenance. 

Freight Management with Global Connectivity

Global logistics requires global connectivity, however there are still many areas where IoT connections are not available. By partnering with 1NCE, Digital Matter expanded its coverage to 173 countries, supporting connectivity across 2G, 3G, 4G, LTE-M, and NB-IoT networks. This ensures that there aren’t dead zones where cellular infrastructure is the limiting factor.  
Further, Digital Matter devices feature cell-tower fallback for situations in which there is no line of sight to the sky. Devices use the ID of nearby towers to provide an approximate location which will at least give a point within a certain town or city when GPS fails. 

Digital Matter also offer devices with Iridium satellite connectivity as a fallback option. When paired with offline geofences and time-based ignition triggers can be used to send an emergency signal when set conditions are met on the device. This is regardless of the device's connection to the server. This means that rules can be locally triggered without requiring an internet connection.  
An example of this would setting a geofenced ‘off route zone’ for a rural location and requiring any geofence interactions to be uploaded immediately. Without internet access, this alert would normally be triggered only upon re-establishing a cellular connection, preventing anyone from responding in time. With satellite and offline fence storage, the fence interactions could be triggered onboard the device. This indicates that satellite should be used to immediately share this information with the server for alerting. 

Healthcare

In healthcare environments, misplaced or underutilized equipment can delay care and waste resources. A Nursing Times survey found that over a third of nurses spend more than an hour per shift finding medical equipment, that’s 40 hours per month per nurse. 
Traditional Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) in healthcare are complex to deploy and relatively costly, often requiring extensive infrastructure. To provide a more affordable alternative, GeoTracker utilizes Digital Matter’s Edge devices with 1NCE solutions to enable precise indoor-to-outdoor tracking. 

GeoTracker’s solution involved using Digital Matter devices as Bluetooth gateways to scan for Bluetooth tags in each room at the hospital. Hospitals were able to track wheelchairs, hospital beds and other life-saving medical assets to what floor and room they were in. This resulted in higher patient care and satisfaction levels as staff spent less time searching for equipment. With real-time tracking hospitals can now better allocate resources, minimize asset loss and reduce staff inefficiency.  

Impact and Future Outlook

The Potential of IoT Asset Monitoring Across Industries IoT asset tracking offers businesses a powerful tool to streamline operations and achieve greater efficiency. With its easy deployment and scalability, it provides a cost-effective solution that delivers exceptional ROI. 
By using IoT asset monitoring devices, businesses gain actionable insights into asset usage patterns, allowing them to optimize operations, reduce unnecessary equipment, and eliminate inefficiencies such as loss or underutilized resources. The rich, real-time data provided by IoT solutions enables informed, data-driven decisions, helping organizations unlock new levels of productivity and operational excellence. 
AI-Powered Insights and IoT Asset Monitoring For large enterprises with thousands of assets in the field, low-cost, distributed IoT asset monitoring provides the opportunity to generate large datasets. These datasets can be combed by AI-powered analytics to produce enhanced insights. By letting the assets themselves produce the data, organizations are not constrained by the knowledge or availability of any individual department in generating insights and discovering unknown trends. 

Discover how Digital Matter devices, powered by 1NCE’s global IoT connectivity can help your business succeed faster. Streamline operations, reduce costs and receive actionable insights. Stay tuned for future collaborations between 1NCE & Digital Matter.