The Cobouw Awards is a yearly event of the biggest building industry magazin of the Netherlands. Awards are for best construction company, the most sustainable project and best product of the year, the best digital product, and and Innovation Award. SmartBrick was part of the last five nominees of the Cobouw Innovation Award.

The first SmartBricks from Althen were installed on Tuesday 12 October at the Overamstel Testing location. SmartBrick originated from an innovation competition of the Municipality of Amsterdam, where it achieved the highest score out of 46 entries in two previous phases of this program.

Althen Sensors & Controls has reached the next phase of the innovation competition for monitoring bridges and quay walls for the Municipality of Amsterdam. For this innovation tender, Althen started the development of a new IIoT sensor solution called the Smartbrick, specifically suited for cost-effective monitoring of quays and bridges.