The LoRa Alliance is a fairly dynamic organization, as projects appear to be progressing nicely. The organization began with just a handful of vendors and has now grown to more than 500. To that end, Dave Kjendal, CTO and Executive Vice President of Engineering at Senet, has just joined the Alliance’s Board of Directors. It seemed like a good time to speak to Dave to hear what his ideas and direction are for the Alliance. Dave is my guest on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast.
LoRaWAN® News
LoRa Alliance® Membership Benefits for Adopter Members in 2020
The LoRa Alliance® exists to develop and promote the open LoRaWAN® protocol and its ecosystem to deliver massive Internet of Things (IoT) worldwide. To reach this goal, it is crucial that member companies are successful in LoRaWAN-related pursuits and obtain real value from membership. This is especially true for adopter members who benefit from the large presence the LoRa Alliance has in the world of IoT.
LPWANs Help Realize Supply-Chain Monitoring’s Potential
IoT is enabling a new era of end-to-end supply-chain monitoring and actionable analytics. Low-power, wide-area networks provide the connectivity to make this possible.
Real-time, transparent, and seamless tracking of assets, both indoors and out, while optimizing logistics and supply chains, has long been the focus of innovative companies around the globe. Internet of Things (IoT) technology is on the cusp of ushering in a whole new era of end-to-end supply-chain monitoring and actionable analytics. In particular, the recent emergence of low-power, wide-area networks (LPWANs) is driving this transition.
Know Your Place: Technology Helps Keep Track of What Matters
Today, municipalities and businesses are testing and deploying a variety of systems that aim to locate vehicles and assets. For detecting people, the methods range from crowd control to tracking emergency responders. Assets and inventory systems are homing in on tool location on work sites, bicycles for micro-mobility and vehicles for supply-chain information.
Netze BW launches largest LoRaWAN deployment in Germany
Netze BW, the largest distribution network company for electricity, gas, and water in Baden-Württemberg, Germany’s third-largest state, has launched the largest LoRaWAN deployment in that country.
Working with Kerlink, a solutions provider dedicated to the Internet of Things (IoT), and ZENNER IoT Solutions, a LoRaWAN system integrator and solution provider in Germany, the deployment includes up to 3,000 Kerlink Wirnet LoRaWAN gateways.
June 2020: Pursuing Sustainability One Smart Home, One Connected Community at a Time
Technologies that create smarter, healthier homes lead to smarter,
safer cities and a healthier planet.
The EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) suggests Americans, on average, spend about 90% of their time indoors—this statistic is possibly even higher during a pandemic in which Americans are encouraged to stay at home by their local governments. Indoors, the concentration of some pollutants is often two to five times higher than it is outdoors. The very young, the very old, and those with cardiovascular or respiratory disease tend to spend even more time in built environments, and the EPA says these are the people who are most likely to be affected by air pollution.
Why LoRa will be the Likely Winner in Lightweight WAN Battle
Technically the various WAN technologies are variations with trade-offs between range, power consumption and data rate. So what makes LoRa special?
There are several alternative technologies being promoted as lightweight wide area networks (WANs). These include LoRa, Sigfox, Ingenu and Weightless along with some other radio standards that, to a greater or lesser degree, cover the same technical ground. It seems unlikely all of these will survive. Which will emerge as the winner?
LoRaWAN Supports Medical Professionals During COVID-19
COVID-19 is taking a tremendous toll on medical and other frontline professionals around the world as they treat infected patients while dealing with the physical and emotional stress of long days, lack of supplies, extreme worry about being infected (or, worse, infecting loved ones at home), as well as uncertainty about the present and future. They need help in their struggle to treat patients with COVID-19 and prevent the spread of the virus, and governments, institutions, private companies, and individuals around the world are responding to this call.
Low Power Wide Area Networks nell’IoT
There is no doubt about the role 5G will have in companies of the future, but there are numerous scenarios where #LPWAN technology is better suited. In this article, Marcello Marino from Unidata explains the different LPWAN technologies and why #LoRaWAN is the ideal technology for #smartmetering, #Smartutilities, #smartcities, and other applications.
READ MORE (Article in Italian)
IoT sensors on Etna to predict eruptions
A team of French researchers, in collaboration with the Italian Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, is monitoring the level of radon leakage from the most active volcano in Europe to try to predict an imminent eruption. To allow data collection even during the winter months, the team used an automated system to acquire data in real time.
Collaboration for LoRaWAN deployment in Germany
Kerlink and ZENNER IoT Solutions have collaborated on what claims to be the largest LoRaWAN deployment in Germany, including up to 3,000 Kerlink Wirnet LoRaWAN gateways. The network is operated by Netze BW, the largest distribution network company for electricity, gas, and water in Baden-Württemberg, Germany’s third-largest state.
NNNCo to distribute Sensoterra soil moisture probes
NNNCo has teamed up with Dutch manufacturer of wireless soil moisture sensors Sensoterra to bring its products to the Asia Pacific.
Sensoterra’s LoRaWAN soil moisture probes are available on the LoRAWAN AS923 band (923MHZ) enabling the devices to work on LoRaWAN networks across Australia and Asia Pacific.
Conectando al Planeta de Forma Inteligente con LoRaWAN
El despliegue de redes LoRaWAN no ha parado de crecer en los últimos cinco años y en la actualidad cuenta con 133 operadores de red que operan LoRaWAN, y esta cifra no incluye los lanzamientos privados de la tecnología, para un total de 143 países que cuentan con algún tipo de red con esta tecnología. El crecimiento se debe principalmente a la demanda del mercado por este tipo de conectividad que cubre un nicho de mercado muy concreto de forma eficiente. El ecosistema sigue creciendo y ya existen en el mercado 245 dispositivos certificados por el LoRa Alliance.
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The deployment of LoRaWAN networks has not stopped growing in the past five years and in the present time with 133 network operators operating LoRaWAN, and this figure does not include the private launches of technology, for a total of 143 countries that operate with technology. The growth is mainly due to the market demand for this type of connectivity that efficiently covers a very specific niche market. The ecosystem continues to grow and there are 245 devices certified by the LoRa Alliance on the market.
Managing Change | Best Practice in Large Facility IoT Data Deployments
PHILADELPHIA, March 11, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — A new white paper from Microshare Inc., the leading data management provider in the commercial real estate industry, lays out a step-by-step process of change management for the deployment of the Internet of Things (IoT) sensors in large facilities and across corporate property portfolios.
LoRaWAN World Expo event to celebrate LoRa Alliance’s 5th anniversary
The LoRa Alliance said that it is bringing the LoRaWAN World Expo event to France as an opportunity to celebrate its first five years in operation and look ahead to what the LoRaWAN standard can achieve in the future. The event will take place at the Palais des Congres in Paris on 09-10 June, and is expected to attract more than 2,000 attendees.
First LoRaWAN® Elephant Collar successfully deployed in Liwonde
Park Rangers in Liwonde National Park in Malawi are for the first time able to see elephant locations every fifteen minutes. This is possible due to new Smart Parks technology providing Rangers with GPS-locations four times an hour. With this information, elephants can be better protected.
In cooperation with conservation organization African Parks, an elephant was recently equipped with a LoRaWAN® / GPS-sensor in Liwonde National Park, which has been managed by African Parks with the Government since 2015 in Malawi. This technology is energy-efficient so that the device has a long-life span and sends reliable and consistent location updates. One of the advantages of receiving real-time data locations allows for improved monitoring of these giant land mammals.
CTIA Wireless Foundation Announces Semifinalists in Catalyst Grants Program
Seven Social Entrepreneurs using Wireless for Health and Wellness Move to Next Round of Competition
WASHINGTON – CTIA Wireless Foundation today announced its seven semifinalists in Catalyst, its competitive grants program. These applicants move to the next round, and three finalists will be considered for grants of up to $100,000
“We are thrilled to have received such strong submissions that show the innovative applications of wireless for social entrepreneurs solving issues in the health and wellness space,” said Dori Kreiger, Executive Director of CTIA Wireless Foundation. “From remote healthcare to IoT devices and wearables, it’s incredible to see how these organizations are using wireless technology to solve real issues.”
The LoRa Alliance® and Connected Farming Solutions at World Ag Expo 2020
Every year, major stakeholders in the North American agricultural network meet at World Ag Expo, one of the continent’s largest annual agriculture events. This year, the event will take place February 11 – 13 in Tulare, one hour south of Fresno in the heart of California’s Central Valley, where farmers produce more than one fourth of all U.S. food and one fifth of all U.S. dairy products.
This year, the LoRa Alliance® will have a booth at this show for the first time, and members will present some of their most advanced farming solutions using Semtech’s LoRa® devices and the LoRaWAN® protocol. More and more Internet of Things (IoT) solutions in the farming vertical market are leveraging LoRa-based sensors and LoRaWAN-based long range networking. The benefits of this particular low power wide area networking (LPWAN) platform include ease of deployment, long battery life and no dependency on Cellular operators.
Two market leading companies in collaboration for new indoor air quality monitoring devices
Senseair and Talkpool are launching two new IoT connected indoor air quality monitors, securing both energy savings and health benefits: the Explora CO2, temperature and humidity sensor, and the Explora Particles, temperature and humidity sensor, both with LoRaWAN.
A great value of the new products lies in the application of connecting the data to ventilation systems. Frequent input of actual indoor climate conditions into the ventilation systems allows the ventilation system to activate only when necessary and deactivate directly once the ideal indoor climate is established, resulting in large energy savings…
LoRa and LoRaWAN: How the Technology Helps Smart Cities
Long-range wireless technology can help cities overcome the Internet of Things coverage challenges.
Smart city networks power everything from autonomous vehicles to traffic monitoring, services for first responders and intelligent streetlights. Long-range (LoRa) wireless technology can help cities overcome network coverage challenges and enable them to widely deploy Internet of Things solutions in smart cities, providing coverage where traditional Wi-Fi solutions may not.
LoRa Alliance on 2020: Private Networks, Platform Advances, Edge Computing
“Industrial IoT (IIoT) has advanced by leaps and bounds this year as companies have realized the amount of insight they could gain into their operations and resource utilization. There is no sign of activity slowing in 2020, driven by business and technology initiatives that will integrate IIoT and make it a standard operating procedure.
“Advances in connectivity are already shifting the landscape. There are many standalone technologies, of course, but we anticipate significant advantages from connectivity technologies working together. For example, bringing together LoRaWAN and Wi-Fi opens up a new realm of use cases that neither could address independently, but that can solve many of the existing challenges in industrial deployments…”
Industrial wireless solutions push boundaries to deliver data from remote locations
LoRaWAN, self-healing mesh, WirelessHART and other innovations push boundaries of reliably to deliver data from remote, hard-to-reach locations.
It’s well known that reach often exceeds grasp, but wireless lets process applications and users grasp as far as they want. Plus, updated wireless standards and devices are letting them do it more easily and at less cost than ever.
Read the full article: https://www.controlglobal.com/articles/2019/industrial-wireless-solutions-push-boundaries-to-deliver-data-from-remote-locations/?utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral
How to Evaluate Connectivity Options for Smart Water Meters in the IoT Age
The promise of connected smart meters has been discussed for years, and many utilities have used mobile reading solutions for years, but only a few are starting to look seriously at the implementation of fixed network connectivity, especially in North America and Europe. Wireless connectivity is more widely seen as a key enabler but the array of technology available is broad and different forms of metering have specific requirements that make them better-suited to particular wireless technologies. The LoRa Alliance, explains why low power wide area networks (LPWANs) have the attributes that water metering projects demand.
Efficient Monitoring Solution for Reducing Energy Consumption
Semtech has announced that IHM Pacific, and Andrea Informatique have collaborated to develop a new electricity metering solution based on Semtech’s LoRaWAN devices and the LoRaWAN protocol. Deployments of the metering solution have been ongoing for over a year and are increasing in New Caledonia and some parts of the Pacific and Europe.
“Semtech’s LoRaWAN devices and the LoRaWAN protocol allowed us to create metering solutions that offer significant advantages for sustainable, cost-saving utility metering,” said Francois Ista, CEO of IHM Pacific. “Real-time data on energy use provided by our LoRaWAN-connected meters enable customers to closely monitor usage trends. By addressing wasteful habits to increase energy efficiency, our customers typically receive a return on investment (ROI) in three months to six months following deployment of up to 26%.”
Really Smart Cities Run On LoRaWAN | EENews Interview with Wienke Giezeman
The Things Industries offers complementary services to help end-users and systems integrators implement LoRaWAN, from silicon to cloud. The Things Industry has a profound understanding of the LoRaWAN stack and the evolution of the standard, including advanced setups optimising scalability and device life cycle management, as well as security.
Street Light Solutions to Save Cities on Utility Costs
Smart technology provides remote lighting control that can more accurately adjust, modify and monitor the amount of time the lights are turned on and to what extent.
According to a new report from UK-based Juniper Research, the widespread deployment of smart street lighting solutions could save up to $15 billion by 2023.
If you think about how many streetlamps you pass on your daily drive home from work, it’s likely pretty high. Now think about all the unnecessary energy consumption being wasted on those same lights at 2 a.m., when the streets are less traveled. It’s not okay to assume that it should be dark and no lights are needed when streets have less traffic – that’s simply unsafe. However, by adding intelligence and control into smart lighting offerings, we can drastically reduce energy expenses and power consumption.