Estonia, Post Office, Technology, Transport

Mari Allese, head of the postal service business at Omniva, said that letterboxes functioning as part of the Internet of Things may serve as basis for need-based postal services in the future, spokespeople for Omniva told BNS.

For instance, in areas where mail is deposited in letterboxes very seldom Omniva employees would go and empty a letterbox only after getting a signal that a letter has been deposited.

Elsewhere in the world networks of smart letterboxes are used also for other purposes, such as their exteriors rented out for ads or information gathered via them about humidity and air temperature. "At the same time, the pilot project with Levira gives us an opportunity to find new ways how to make letterboxes useful also in other ways in the future," Allese said.

"Using the Internet of Things in logistics has very great potential, as it enables to make decisions faster and benefit from better management of processes with the help of devices linked up to the web and the information gathered by them," said Meelis Anton, director for network services at Levira.