Trimble Launches Connected Farm Dashboard

Dashboard Enables Better Decision Making by Putting Key Information at Farmers' Fingertips

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Aug 27, 2013, 06:31 ET

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Aug. 27, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Trimble (NASDAQ: TRMB) announced today the Connected Farm™ dashboard, which provides one centralized location for farmers to view key information impacting their operations. With this information, farmers will be able to make better daily decisions based on the latest data. The Connected Farm dashboard is customizable and accessible via Internet-enabled devices such as desktop and notebook personal computers, smartphones and tablets, and Trimble's new TMX-2050™ display.

The Connected Farm dashboard will allow farmers to:

Check daily rainfall totals for each virtual rain gauge—without the use of physical rain gauges. (Made possible by Trimble's acquisition of RainWave's assets). This will allow a farmer to reprogram his irrigation system based on the previous evening's rainfall, optimizing the use of water.
View the weather forecast weekly, daily, or hourly for a given location including temperature, humidity, chance of precipitation and wind speed. For example, wind speed will allow a farmer to plan when to spray a given field.
Set up a Doppler radar map to show upcoming weather patterns for their area. This will allow a farmer to assess in real time whether or not to continue with a current activity.
Check the latest commodity prices. Farmers will be able to select the commodities that matter to them and list them based on personal priority.
View farming operations data. For example, if the farmer is viewing yesterday's planting activities, the dashboard may show population, singulation, skips and doubles.
Monitor a fleet by tracking the location and status of vehicles and receive geo-fence and curfew alerts. Farmers also can link through to Trimble's new Connected Farm fleet app to add landmarks or for turn-by-turn directions to locate vehicles from their current position, and view historical positions.
View a boundaries map created with Trimble's Connected Farm scout app.

Following the completion of the recently announced IQ Irrigation asset acquisition, irrigation pivot data is expected to be available on the Connected Farm dashboard in New Zealand in the fourth quarter of 2013 and the U.S. in the first half of 2014.

These features will allow farmers to use their proprietary information to make real-time decisions needed to manage operations.

"With the Connected Farm dashboard, farmers can quickly see a snapshot view of their latest field operation as well as key information that may impact today's activities such as rainfall, commodities, and the day's weather forecast," said Joe Denniston, vice president for Trimble's Agriculture Division. "With this information available in one convenient central location through Connected Farm, farmers can access the information they need to make the best daily decisions about their farm. Since the dashboard can be accessed from Internet-enabled devices, farmers can make these decisions from potentially any location at any time."

The Connected Farm dashboard is a free Web portal and is currently available. To set up an account, please visit www.connectedfarm.com. To view rainfall totals, monitor pivot irrigators (when available), or for fleet management, customers will need to purchase these services. Contact a local Trimble reseller at www.trimble.com/locator for more information.

About Trimble's Agriculture Division

Trimble's Agriculture Division is a leader in precision agriculture, GPS and guidance solutions that help customers operate farm vehicles and implements more efficiently, save on input costs and increase yield and productivity. To ensure better decision making, Trimble offers an integrated operations management solution called Connected Farm that provides information exchange across the entire farm using industry-leading software and hardware. Additional Trimble solutions include vehicle and implement guidance and steering; application control for seed, liquid and granular products; laser- and GPS-based water management technology; and a harvest solution.

For more information on Trimble Agriculture, visit: www.trimble.com/agriculture.

About Trimble

Trimble applies technology to make field and mobile workers in businesses and government significantly more productive. Solutions are focused on applications requiring position or location—including surveying, construction, agriculture, fleet and asset management, public safety and mapping. In addition to utilizing positioning technologies, such as GPS, lasers and optics, Trimble solutions may include software content specific to the needs of the user. Wireless technologies are utilized to deliver the solution to the user and to ensure a tight coupling of the field and the back office. Founded in 1978, Trimble is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif.

For more information, visit: www.trimble.com.

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SOURCE Trimble