Hardy Schmidbauer, Semtech Corporation

Most people in the Internet of Things (IoT) market have identified Smart Building applications as an attractive, high-volume vertical market segment with significant value or savings when using Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technology. There are many use cases within the smart building realm which are already demonstrating a strong return on investment (ROI) for many solution providers and volume enterprise clients including space optimization (square footage reduction), indoor/outdoor security, energy consumption, water consumption, water leak detection, and improvements for operation processes, such as cleaning and regulatory compliance (food, pest, safety). The new LoRa® Smart Building Kit from Semtech allows companies and solution providers to easily test, validate and determine the ROI of using LoRaWAN® technology for Smart Building applications. The kit includes more than 20 sensors, two gateways and a web-based smart-building-focused user interface, all for less than $1,000.

The Semtech Developer Ecosystem team is always looking for new ways to help enrich the developer community. It is with this in mind that we are getting ready to launch a new facet of our LoRa® Developer Portal, the Developer Showcase.

The Developer Showcase will be an area where developers can submit tips, tricks and best practices on how to solve LoRaWAN® application and deployment issues. We will back this launch with a marketing campaign, and share these ideas with the world.

by Laurens Slats, LoRaWAN Solutions Architect, The Things Industries

Images courtesy of The Things Industries

After almost two years, the world record for distance traveled by a data packet based on the LoRaWAN® protocol – 702 kilometers (436 miles) – has been broken. Set in 2017, this record was regarded by many as nearly impossible to break; that is, until the recent Servet IV mission. On July 13, 2019, the previous record was exceeded by 64 kilometers for an astonishing distance of 766 kilometers (476 miles).

On Saturday, July 13, 2019, seven balloons of different sizes launched from Alfamen in Zaragoza, Spain. The balloons carried 20 experiments from developers, ranging from young talents to veteran makers. The balloons were tracked using The Things Network, LoRaWAN-based networking infrastructure by APRS and by satellite using Spot.

At the Annual Members Meeting of the LoRa Alliance® in Berlin, Germany, Semtech’s David Hoover demonstrated a closed-loop control system, showing just one of the possibilities of how it can be used, in this case, for the water utility sector.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is all about connecting devices together to let users, and each other, know what’s going on.

What is my temperature? Where am I? What is the gas level? How are the acoustics near me? What level of vibration am I experiencing? And on and on and on.

While the range of devices that need to communicate their status varies greatly, there can be some commonalities. These devices are often in an area where connecting to mains-supplied power is not an option, so they will probably be either battery-powered or use scavenged energy to power themselves.

Don’t misunderstand me, there are use cases for things like self-driving cars and telemedicine that require much more detailed conversations between devices and exchange much more data, but for the majority of IoT devices, they really don’t send a lot of data at any one time. They just need to ‘phone home’ occasionally to report their status or an event.

The LoRa Alliance® has a certification program to test whether or not an end-device meets the functional requirements of the LoRaWAN® specification. LoRaWAN Certified^CM end devices ensure interoperability and compliance with any LoRaWAN-based network, and device manufacturers may carry the LoRaWAN Certified mark. The certification mark provides end users with the confidence of using devices that are reliable and that behave according to LoRa Alliance specifications.

28 May 2019

By Derek Hunt,
Director of Certification for LoRa Alliance® and Certification Committee Chair

At the moment, there are a few different versions of the LoRaWAN® specification that are available to developers. Each supports slightly different functionality. So, which version should you use when developing LoRaWAN-based solutions?

The short answer is that the most current version of the specification for which there is a Certification program is LW 1.0.2. The Certification program for LW1.0 has been withdrawn and the Certification Program from LW1.0.1 will be withdrawn at the end of 2019.

While LW 1.0.2 is the most stable, you may want to consider using LW 1.0.3. This version of the specification adds support for Class B functionality; however, in the United States, there is a minor change that has delayed creation of a Certification test. For more information about certification, take a look at the Certification page on the LoRa Alliance website.

As a former startup founder myself, I realize how hard it can be to get your product/solution/service/whatever recognized. Any press or customer goodwill goes a LONG way when you are just trying to get your dreams off of the ground.

So, you take advantage of every opportunity you can find…and this one is a pretty nice one.

Momenta Ventures has created the The LoRaWAN Startup Challenge to recognize the most-innovative early-stage startups leveraging low power, wide area networks (LPWAN), specifically LoRaWAN-based technologies.

 

In today’s electronic economy, developers are seen as the grease which allows the wheel of innovation to keep turning. Because of this, any platform that is based on technology adoption requires a strong developer community to support it. I’m happy to announce that Semtech is doing our part to help foster the LPWAN and IoT developer communities…welcome to Semtech’s LoRa Developer Portal!

How do we increase the range of a radio link? Here we look at the constraints at work when building a real-world long range radio link. We’ll show how and why LoRa Technology is the right choice for designing a radio link where range matters.

Long Range and Low Consumption in the Real World

How do we maximize the range of a low power radio link in a practical application? Assuming that we do not want to incur the hardware and recurring operating costs together with the high energy consumption of a Cellular solution, this means finding a solution in the license-free ISM band.