West Sussex Advances Smart Livestock Monitoring With Private 5G

Pneumonitor and Boldyn Networks deployment gives farmers near real-time insight into livestock-building conditions, supporting animal welfare, productivity and farm resilience

27 August 2026, England: West Sussex County Council is advancing the use of connected technologies in livestock production through the public sector-led Growing Sussex programme, partnering with Boldyn Networks and agritech specialist Pneumonitor to connect an in-pen environmental monitoring device to a private 5G network.

The deployment enables farmers to access near real-time information on conditions inside livestock buildings, helping them identify and respond more quickly to environmental changes that could contribute to respiratory disease, heat stress and reduced animal performance.

Unlike conventional sensors that are often mounted on walls or other fixed points, Pneumonitor measures environmental conditions directly within the pen, where the animals are. Connected using 5G Reduced Capability (RedCap) technology, the device can transmit timely data from livestock buildings, supporting more scalable and connected approaches to farm monitoring.

The technology comes as livestock producers in many regions face increasing pressure from extreme weather, including rising temperatures and heatwaves. Better visibility of conditions inside livestock housing can help farmers take earlier action to protect animal health and welfare while supporting productivity and the resilience of farm operations.

Cllr Yvonne Gravely, Cabinet Member for Economy and Skills at West Sussex County Council, said: “Agriculture plays a vital role in West Sussex, but periods of extreme weather are creating new challenges for the sector. Through Growing Sussex, we’re helping growers and food producers use technology to better understand changing conditions, protect animal welfare and build resilience for the future. That’s good for local businesses, good for our rural economy and good for West Sussex.”

Gearoid Collins, Commercial Director, Real Estate, Enterprise & Wind Farms at Boldyn Networks, said: “As the connectivity partner for Growing Sussex, we’re committed to helping shape a new era for agriculture and deploy technologies that bring a welcome boost to the West Sussex economy. Connecting Pneumonitor through RedCap shows how private 5G can support practical agritech applications and provide the digital foundation for many more connected applications across the farming sector.”

Isaac Orr, Chief Executive Officer at Pneumonitor, said: “With heatwaves becoming more frequent, conditions inside livestock buildings can deteriorate faster than they can be spotted by eye. Pneumonitor measures conditions in the pen itself, where the animals are, rather than at the wall where sensors are usually mounted. This project showed when heat load was building and what could be done before yields were affected. The connectivity behind the deployment now allows us to bring this monitoring to far more sites than before. We thank Boldyn Networks and the Growing Sussex programme for their partnership.”

Bringing advanced wireless technology to livestock farms

5G RedCap is designed for connected devices that do not require the full capabilities of conventional 5G. It combines 5G connectivity with lower power consumption and reduced device requirements, making it suited to IoT applications where long battery life, reliability and lower maintenance demands are important.

For livestock producers, this can provide a practical connectivity layer for environmental monitoring and other connected farm technologies, particularly as farms look to collect more real-time data from buildings, fields and other production environments.

Growing Sussex was established by West Sussex County Council to develop and demonstrate practical applications of 5G, IoT and AI across food, drink and agricultural production. The programme brings together local government, education providers, technology companies, growers and livestock producers to explore how digital technologies can address real-world challenges across the food and farming sector.

Boldyn Networks and West Sussex County Council announced plans for four private 5G networks in 2024, with all four Growing Sussex partner sites live by December 2025.

The integration of Pneumonitor adds livestock-building environmental monitoring to the programme’s wider connected-agriculture ecosystem, demonstrating how private 5G networks can support emerging applications designed to improve animal welfare, farm productivity and agricultural resilience.

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