There were 200 participants from 44 countries all over the world, but in the end the overall competition winner - with a cash prize of $5,000 - and therefore 'Innovator of the Year', was Limmex, a Switzerland-based company which developed the first mobile phone-based emergency watch allowing the wearer to call for help at the push of a button. The solution uses a Swiss watch (naturally) with a built-in loudspeaker and microphone. The jurors thought its ease of use meant it could become a mass market product.

As is usual on these occasions there were large number of entries and picking just a few winners from the huge pool of worthies was difficult. In fact the finalists of the M2M Challenge fully reflected the great potential of the market, said?Miguel Blockstrand, Head of Product Line Device Connections at Ericsson.

“Only our imagination sets the limits for what can be accomplished in M2M. We believe that `What if?` will often be answered by something that has to do with M2M. Therefore we find it inspiring to encourage the eco system and the creation of new ideas.”

The winners in the specific M2M categories - Energy, Healthcare, Mobility, etc - were: • Energy: tado° created the first intelligent, smartphone-based heating control system that adjusts automatically to the residents’ behavior.

• Healthcare: VibroTac by SENSODRIVE is a vibrotactile feedback system with high application potential in medical technology, industry and entertainment solutions.

• Mobility: The AnyCar smart entry with access management is an innovative multi-consumer service by Ericsson that facilitates car access, monitoring and usage from any mobile device.

• Security: Beverage Metrics presented the first complete beverage management solution to meet the industry’s biggest challenges – perpetual inventory management and inventory shrinkage.

• Consumer Electronics & More: QGate makes it possible to connect things from our everyday lives to the internet, manage and monitor them remotely with a smartphone via the QGate App.

Five runner ups were also selected for each of the categories.

• Energy: SIGFOX, the first and only cellular network operator fully dedicated to low-throughput communication for connected objects.

• Healthcare: Idezo provides a solution to optimize post-surgery recovery. A small force sensor is placed in a sock and the force signal is sent via wireless connection to an app on the smartphone.

• Mobility: “Magsense” by Mobilisis is an intelligent system that provides guidance to available parking spaces using magnetic sensors.

• Security: Mi5 Security’s “iDefigo” Service is a MobileFirst cloud-based surveillance management platform to communicate with cellular cameras that are self powered and that can be positioned anywhere.

• Consumer Electronics & More: Spree by Hothead Technologies is a fully integrated wearable biosensor that measures and reports body temperature, heart rate, pulse oximetry and motion through a single device that can be worn on the head, the upper arm or the wrist.