Who likes to talk about cockroaches, bugs, or moths when talking about their own business? Pest control is an unpopular topic and is subject to high compliance requirements in many areas. In the past, pest control was primarily handled in a traditional way in logistics, gastronomy, food and pharmaceutical businesses, meaning that traps were set and checked at regular intervals. This could be very costly and time-consuming — with staff being especially scarce in this industry.

For high-tech storage facilities, this means production downtime once or twice a year because the facilities need to be shut down for inspections. And for pest controllers, these inspections are hard work, often round-the-clock, seven days a week: Depending on the customer, hundreds of pests need to be counted and clustered manually.

Digitalized traps

With traptice, WAINS gives pest control companies a customized, smart solution based on Cumulocity IoT. Software AG's IoT platform won over the startup with its fast time-to-market and flexible customization capabilities because it enables them to develop solutions easily and bring them to market quickly. traptice insect consists of a monitor box, which contains an attractant or pheromone, and a digital unit that uses sensors to capture environmental data such as humidity or temperature, and transmit it to the IoT platform together with a live image of the adhesive surface. The issue of rodent monitoring is also covered: traptice rodent allows pest controllers and their customers to digitally monitor snap traps for optimal resource planning. The use of manual rodent traps is subject to very strict regulations, and the traps must be frequently checked onsite by pest controllers in case of an infestation. That not only costs time but drives high personnel costs as well.

Customizable flexible dashboards enable users to conveniently check traptice data. The traps are connected to the cloud via a WiFi or LoRaWAN. The cloud solution is equipped with an AI tool that categorizes the objects in the live images into pests, vermin or beneficial insects and populates the dashboard with this information.

Elevating pest control

WAINS’ smart solution has everything needed to turn pest control into a modern, customer-oriented service: It creates digital added value that opens the user's door to new offerings. "The insect cloud allows real-time remote monitoring and means enormous time and cost savings," says Benjamin Ruoff, Managing Director of WAINS GmbH. "Companies can detect infestations faster and significantly easier, allowing them to prevent further damage through timely countermeasures. Routine controls are no longer conducted onsite. Instead, they’re done digitally, so downtimes in production facilities are a thing of the past," explains Ruoff.

How sustainable pest control works

WAINS offers traptice in a leasing model at attractive prices. Beginners can try out the devices and subscribe to flexible options including an all-inclusive package. Pest controllers can use the time saved by traptice to proactively improve their customer relationships and develop preventative measures or invest in recruiting personnel. Sustainability is also a huge topic. One WAINS customer relies on breeding its own beneficial insects to naturally get rid of pests, while another uses laser technology. In any case, traptice puts companies a huge step ahead because they can prevent a bigger infestation with early detection and use fewer chemicals to eradicate it.

Boosting efficiency through digital monitoring

WAINS customers can deploy as few or as many traps as they need to monitor their facility. The LoRaWAN devices are connected without any additional programming effort to the Loriot Network Server via a standard interface, so all third-party providers can be integrated in the Cumulocity IoT platform.

Evaluating the environmental data gives companies comprehensive insights into the conditions that favor pest infestations. One WAINS customer—a grist mill—uses traptice to investigate how temperature and humidity influence an emerging infestation to deploy fast countermeasures. Industrial companies in particular can significantly improve their efficiency through digital monitoring with traptice because it completely eliminates downtimes in production facilities caused by traditional pest control.

Growth through scalable new markets

traptice is a success—as shown by the proud customer base WAINS has built in a short time, including customers from the top four pest control companies in Germany. Despite challenges in its early years due to the COVID pandemic, the startup has doubled in size since it was founded in 2019 and aims to conquer additional markets in the industrial, pharmaceutical, hospitality, and gastronomy sectors. Since the IoT devices can be deployed at any location, this gives users a wide variety of opportunities to create a digital network of customers, pest controllers, and auditors.

WAINS aims to become the collecting point for all data related to pest control. The young company certainly does not suffer from a scarcity of ideas. "Some ideas apply to niches within the niche, such as bedbugs in hotels. Here we’re planning digital round-the-clock monitoring of room temperature, which must remain at 50°C for 48 hours after an infestation," says Ruoff. But niche topics also have a market and Cumulocity IoT enables quick and easy connection of external systems—and the WAINS team wants to fully explore these opportunities.