UpKeep Announces New Patent on UpKeep Edge

For three years, the UpKeep team has invested time, effort, and energy into creating a second transformative product that allows maintenance, reliability, and operations professionals to use data as the key to collaboration and success. We named this product Edge.

Thrilled with the success we’ve seen by our customers using Edge, we embarked on a journey to really show how transformative and different UpKeep Edge is by filing a patent application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Well, it took over two years. And just last week while sipping my morning coffee and cleaning out my inbox, I received this email:

Hi Ryan,
Attached is a copy of the patent which was just issued yesterday.
Best Regards,

Our patent for Edge had finally been approved and issued as of September 20th, 2022!   

What Exactly Is Edge?

UpKeep Edge leverages secure wireless internet of things (IoT) sensors and cellular gateways to deliver real-time data about assets and operating environments. Maintenance, operations, and reliability teams are better equipped with Edge to scale their ability to monitor the operating performance of critical equipment and facilities. Click here to learn more about Edge!

How We Got Here

The journey of UpKeep Edge dates back to my time working in a manufacturing plant. While working there, I realized the plant had all of this data that needed to be centralized. Because of that experience, the central question to UpKeep has been, “How do we make data easier to capture?” Our emphasis on mobile was a piece of it, but the other idea was through passive data—data that gets collected without human involvement. That was the idea behind sensors, and thus, Edge was born. 

Edge has been in the works since the summer of 2019 but wasn’t widely released until more recently. I had mentioned the concept of using sensors to track asset performance and level up maintenance practices to UpKeep’s engineering team at one of our weekly stand-up meetings. Mark McKelvy, Product Manager at UpKeep, was just as bullish on the idea as I was and volunteered to start the project from scratch.

After an initial proof of concept, Mark and I immediately saw the potential Edge could have on the industry, and we ran full steam ahead on bringing Edge’s full potential out to the market,  kicking off our innovation lab here at UpKeep. 

While we knew others were working in the IoT space and leveraging sensors in various capacities, we also knew UpKeep was doing something different by bringing sensor data to maintenance teams to help them monitor asset performance and get ahead of critical failures. We believed it was something worth calling out and protecting. So we’re thrilled to hear that the United States Patent and Trademark Office agreed with us.

“This patent is a great achievement for the UpKeep team as it highlights our continued commitment to the kind of innovation that takes our customers’ operations to the next level,” said Mark.

Innovation for Asset Operations Teams Is the Future

Edge gives organizations of all sizes a scalable tool for continuous, remote asset monitoring without drastically increasing cost. 

Here at UpKeep, we’re committed to inventing the next generation of technology for our customers and this industry. Our recent patent is just the beginning as we continue our mission of empowering maintenance teams to revolutionize their businesses and take their operations to the edge.

Thank you to our operations team that has worked in the background to make this launch a success by figuring out important logistics like shipping and production. Thank you to our incredible sales and marketing teams for showcasing why we do what we do as a company and bringing this technology to more maintenance teams around the world. Thank you to our customer success team that goes above and beyond each day to partner with our customers to help them understand how to utilize Edge in order to be the most successful they can be. And, of course, the entire engineering and product team, especially Ismail Elshareef, Mark McKelvy, and Jake Anderson, for working tirelessly to bring this vision to life. 

Let’s take UpKeep and this whole industry to the cutting Edge of innovation!