Using the Nodle Network to Track the Impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19)

How the Nodle IoT Network can help spot global quarantine measures and the slow down in economic activity

At Nodle, we’ve built a wireless network that connects all the things to the internet that are difficult to connect. Our software powers a global network that helps companies communicate with the Internet of Things (IoT) using what we call The Citizen Network, which is a crowd-sourced network of smartphones and other Bluetooth Low Energy enabled devices.

*** All information below has been produced using Anonymized Location Data and Insights from the Nodle Network ***

Insight Into the Global Economy

Since we can see how electronic devices and other ‘Things’ with sensors move around a given area, we realized that this gives us unique insight into the global economy. Given the state of world today, we thought it might be informative to take a look how things have changed in recent weeks.

Before we jump into the data, we want to be very clear; Nodle is a privacy-first company, and by design, we do not have the ability to track individuals. Our business is built on helping companies find inanimate objects, securely and efficiently at low cost. We personally would not want to be tracked ourselves, so therefore, we do not allow others to use our network to track people. In fact, one of the things customers rely on us for is the ability to anonymize their IoT devices.

Within these privacy-first principles though, we have the ability to look at a lot of aggregated, anonymized data from a high level.

The Citizen Network

From a global perspective, our network is as busy as ever. The map below shows all the devices we ‘see’ on our network. These range from smartphones and computers, to power tools, shipping pallets with radio tags, and even espresso machines.

Map of the Nodle Network Globally

Here is our recent network presence in North America:

These maps look pretty much as they do every day. Wherever there are people with smartphones, we have coverage (with a couple exceptions).

However, once we zoom in, things start to look different.

This is our network map for San Francisco, California on March 12th, 2020:

City of San Francisco — March 12th, 2020

Again, this was pretty standard, but on March 13th the City of San Francisco issued its most serious “Shelter in Place” alert. Which translated to: “Don’t go to work, don’t go to school, and don’t go outside for anything inessential.”

By the following Monday, March 16th, this is what the map looked like:

City of San Francisco — March 16th, 2020

There are some clear gaps — Downtown, the Financial District and SoMa (where Nodle’s HQ is located) have all emptied out. The major traffic corridors still show some movement, but traffic is visibly lower.

In the next snapshot, we took a look at New York City. The first map shows March 16th, the same day as the second San Francisco map above. Over the weekend, Twitter was full of photos of people crowding bars and restaurants. Things were pretty normal.

New York City — March 17th

That all changed by the end of the week. This map below shows New York on March 21st, prior to New York State issuing its lockdown, but already we can see signs of thinning. This map looks more crowded than San Francisco, but NYC is denser by nature. What we are picking up are more signals from devices in residential areas, but it is pretty clear that commercial areas like Midtown and Downtown have thinned out considerably.

New York City — March 21st

One more comparison. Below is Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida from two weeks ago.

Walt Disney World Resort, Orlando, Florida — Early March

And here is a snapshot of Disney World from yesterday:

Disney World, Orlando, Florida — March 23rd, 2020

We also looked at sites outside of the US. We thought this one was particularly interesting. The below snapshot shows Lantau Island in Hong Kong. The cluster of activity on the top right is Hong Kong Disneyland. Also, note the steady blue line running along the top of the island — that is traffic (road and rail) to the airport. This shows a normal day, three weeks ago:

Lantau Island in Hong Kong — Beginning of March, 2020

The map below shows the same location, but three days ago. Disneyland is closed and there is no one going to the airport. But also interesting is the cluster of device signals at the bottom. That is Discovery Bay, a large housing development where approximately 20,000 people reside. Even in what is essentially a purely residential area, there is a lot less activity.

Lantau Island in Hong Kong — March 21st 2020