How S O NAH Deployed a Large-Scale Fleet of Fleximodo NB-IoT Sensors with 10-Year 1NCE Connectivity for Smart Parking Across German Cities

Deployment Snapshot

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The Client

S O NAH GmbH (stylised as SONAH) is a smart parking and smart city solutions company founded in 2016 in Aachen by Christian Bartsch, Thomas Grimm, and Victor ter Smitten. With a team of 16 employees, the company has deployed over 80 IoT setups across Europe, combining camera-based overhead detection, in-ground parking sensors, and AI-enabled analytics into integrated parking management platforms for municipalities and commercial properties.

SONAH's flagship project — a digitalisation initiative covering 1,000+ parking spaces in Aachen — demonstrates the company's focus on mid-sized German cities where parking congestion is severe but the budget and scale don't justify the major systems integrators that serve Frankfurt, Munich, or Berlin. Beyond parking, SONAH's portfolio includes smart streetlight integration, digital recycling centres, and digital parking enforcement — positioning the company as a multi-service smart city partner for municipalities.

The Challenge: Equipping Multiple Urban Zones with Decade-Long Maintenance-Free Sensors

SONAH's camera-based systems work well in controlled environments — overhead positions in car parks and garages where sightlines are clear. But on-street urban parking across multiple city zones creates coverage challenges: trees, awnings, building overhangs, and varying street widths make camera placement difficult and maintenance expensive. For wide-area on-street deployment across multiple zones within a city (or across multiple cities), SONAH needed a complementary in-ground parking sensor layer that operates independently of camera infrastructure.

The scale of this requirement — one of the largest single orders in Fleximodo's tracked history — indicates SONAH is equipping an entire city's on-street parking network, not a single zone or pilot project.

The Solution: NB-IoT Sensors with 10-Year Pre-Paid Connectivity at City Scale

SONAH's October 2023 order is one of the largest single Fleximodo procurements recorded.

The deployment included:

• IoT Parking Sensor Standard (NB-IoT, in-ground) — Production-grade NB-IoT parking sensors with 1-year warranty for wide-area on-street deployment across German urban zones
• 1NCE SIM card connectivity (10-year) — Pre-paid cellular data plans providing a decade of NB-IoT connectivity per sensor, with Fleximodo support included throughout the SIM lifetime
• FCA shipping (Incoterms 2020) — Free Carrier terms indicating SONAH arranged its own logistics from the designated delivery point

This order represents an estimated 200-300+ sensors with bundled 10-year connectivity — sufficient to equip the entire on-street parking infrastructure of a mid-sized German city. The 1NCE SIM inclusion is strategically important: by pre-paying for a decade of cellular connectivity, SONAH eliminates recurring telecom costs from its municipal pricing model. The sensors become truly install-and-forget infrastructure — no annual SIM renewals, no connectivity renegotiations, no supplier changes for ten years.

The FCA Incoterms 2020 shipping terms are notable. Unlike most Fleximodo orders that include delivered shipping, SONAH's FCA arrangement means the company takes responsibility for transportation from the carrier handoff point. This suggests SONAH has its own logistics chain — likely coordinating sensor delivery directly to municipal installation sites rather than to a central warehouse, which is more efficient for multi-zone deployments across dispersed urban locations.

No managed backend (IoT Hub) is included, confirming SONAH processes sensor data through its own smart parking platform. This mirrors the pattern seen with other technology integrators: Fleximodo sensors as commodity hardware feeding a proprietary analytics layer. SONAH's platform — combining in-ground sensor data with camera feeds and AI analytics — provides municipalities with a unified dashboard that Fleximodo's IoT Hub alone cannot deliver.

Fleximodo IoT Parking Sensor Standard In-ground 2.0: Technical Profile

Specification	Detail
Detection method	3-axis magnetic field + nanoradar (dual-sensing)
Detection accuracy	99.96%
Dimensions	115 mm diameter, height 64 mm
Weight	390 g
Battery	3.6 V, 13-19 Ah (6-year operational lifetime)
Connectivity	NB-IoT (with 1NCE 10-year SIM)
Ingress protection	IP68
Impact resistance	IK10
Weight endurance	Up to 8 tonnes
Operating temperature	-40 to +85 °C
Casing	Ultrasonically welded into one piece
Certifications	ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001, DNV, CE, FCC

This NB-IoT parking sensor combines its magnetometer element with nanoradar for dual detection technology, and its firmware applies automatic temperature compensation to keep the 99.96% detection accuracy stable across the full -40 to +85 °C operating range. For SONAH's city-wide on-street rollout, that matters in practice: without temperature compensation, magnetic-field drift caused by summer asphalt heat or winter cold can trigger false occupancy readings, which is exactly the kind of noise that undermines the accuracy municipalities expect from a decade-long, install-and-forget sensor network.

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Fleximodo smart parking technology is deployed in 30+ countries. View all products | Urban Lighting Innovations — German smart city integrator with Fleximodo NB-IoT | multiGuide — Largest Fleximodo procurement partner | Stadt Ulm — Municipal Fleximodo LoRaWAN deployment

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is S O NAH GmbH? S O NAH (SONAH) is an Aachen-based smart parking and smart city company founded in 2016 with 16 employees and 80+ IoT deployments across Europe. The company combines camera-based overhead detection, in-ground parking sensors, and AI analytics into integrated parking management platforms for municipalities. Its Aachen flagship project covers 1,000+ parking spaces, and the company also provides smart streetlights, digital recycling centres, and digital parking enforcement.

Why did SONAH choose 10-year 1NCE SIM connectivity? Pre-paid decade-long cellular connectivity eliminates recurring telecom costs from SONAH's municipal pricing model. The sensors become true install-and-forget infrastructure — no annual SIM renewals, no connectivity renegotiations — matching the sensor's 6-year battery life and beyond. This gives SONAH pricing certainty when bidding for multi-year municipal contracts.

How large is SONAH's Fleximodo deployment? This single order — one of the largest individual Fleximodo procurements — represents an estimated 200-300+ NB-IoT sensors with 10-year connectivity, sufficient to equip the on-street parking infrastructure of an entire mid-sized German city. SONAH processes sensor data through its own platform, combining it with camera feeds and AI analytics for a unified municipal dashboard.

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