With the continued maturation of low power wide area networks (LPWANs) and the Internet of Things (IoT), here are my predictions for the coming year:

There are a number of differentiators for LoRa® devices and the LoRaWAN® protocol that have helped in its widespread adoption, including long range connectivity, battery lifetime, security, network architecture, and network capacity. However, there is one particular feature that will drive LoRaWAN adoption for years to come. Technical challenges or limitations (range, capacity, battery lifetime, etc.) are no longer a barrier to Internet of Things (IoT) adoption. The remaining challenges of the IoT are system integration, digital transformation, return-on-investment (ROI), service level agreements (SLA), and ensuring interoperability across an ecosystem.

Consider licensed low power wide area networks (LPWANs), such as NB-IoT, and unlicensed LPWANs, such as LoRaWAN®. LoRaWAN is optimal for long battery lifetime, and for devices that are low cost and only need to send small amounts of data a few times per hour. For its part, NB-IoT is optimal for sending larger packets, guaranteeing downlink latency and guaranteeing a quality of service with the licensed band spectrum. Due to these characteristics, NB-IoT is suited for critical Internet of Things (IoT) use cases, while LoRaWAN is perfect for the volume of IoT (even massive IoT) use cases, because most IoT use cases need low cost devices with a long battery lifetime to achieve an attractive return on . (For a more in-depth comparison of LoRaWAN and NB-IoT, take a moment to read 10 Things About LoRaWAN & NB-IoT.)

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.