What is LoRa Alliance’s role in the evolution of the IoT ecosystem, and how does its technology impact large-scale adoption of IoT solutions?
The LoRa Alliance® develops and manages the LoRaWAN® standard, the market-leading low power wide area networking (LPWAN) technology. The Alliance developed the standard from the ground up to support Massive IoT networking through long-range, low-power, low-cost data transmissions using the unlicensed band. At the same time, we established a robust and collaborative ecosystem, which is exactly what it takes to crack the IoT’s significant challenges.
So why did we set out to do this? Most IoT use cases fall under the Massive IoT domain (with the other being Critical IoT, which relies on real-time communication). Developing and deploying a fit-for-purpose technology makes it easier and more cost-effective for organizations as we move from hundreds to thousands to millions and eventually to billions of devices. And very quickly, LoRaWAN became an enabler of IoT in multiple verticals, in particular smart cities, smart buildings, smart utilities, smart logistics, smart agriculture, and smart industry. It is important to note that LoRaWAN does not only serve the needs of businesses but also people and the planet. Real-life deployments of panic buttons, search and rescue, forest fire detectors, and tracking wildlife are all concrete examples of that.
For all these reasons, the alliance is facilitating massive scaling of IoT deployments, and thus helping widespread IoT become a reality, in essence, we are helping move IoT from hype to reality.
What key innovations or advancements will LoRa Alliance showcase, and how can they transform connectivity in strategic sectors?
Alongside our members, the LoRa Alliance will showcase multiple innovations through several presentations and demonstrations that show LoRaWAN in action across multiple vertical markets. These are just a few examples of the types of applications we will share:
· LoRaWAN satellite connectivity for coverage to the most remote areas, complementing terrestrial networks.
· The power of AI and LoRaWAN can be married to support the asset-tracking market.
· To monitor patients in e-health applications through connected wearables.
· To help BACnet deployments to cut the cord in smart buildings.
· For energy harvesting, even when powering base stations, to bring autonomy to network deployments, and reduce carbon footprint.
· How LoRaWAN is helping accelerate the introduction of wireless connectivity to otherwise wired industrial sensing for industrial IoT.
The growth of IoT is being driven by convergence with AI, Edge Computing, and other emerging technologies. How does LoRaWAN complement these trends, and what use cases stand out?
For AI to work, it must interact with the physical world to collect data from it and issue commands back to it. Effectively, IoT is the glue between the physical world and AI systems. And LoRaWAN, as it serves the Massive IoT market, does the heavy lifting in that role.
Additionally, local network and application servers, which can be hosted on the customer’s on-premise servers (and even co-located with the base stations), can perform edge computing, including running AI algorithms. This allows them to process data locally, important for privacy/confidentiality reasons, and at times to reduce the backhaul cost (in the case of satellite, and even cellular-connected sites). We see several such offerings from our members.
AI and LoRaWAN even come together on the sensors themselves. Vibration sensors and cameras represent the type of sensors that transmit heavy amounts of data. With machine learning, they can now locally process the data on-sensor, and only transmit designated event notifications, such as any anomaly on the vibration pattern, or people count.
For the visitors attending the IoT Solutions World Congress, what opportunities does LoRa Alliance offer for collaboration, learning, or implementing LoRaWAN-based solutions?
We will be at IoT Solutions World Congress with a significant portion of our 350-member ecosystem, with 19 companies exhibiting at the event and showing real-life demos, and several more on stage during the full-day conference track on May 14. We encourage producers and consumers of IoT technology and products to come and meet us––there is no better opportunity to see LoRaWAN in action, get your questions answered, and learn more about the technology, its features and benefits, how to deploy it, and more. We guarantee very insightful conversations will take place on and off stage, and inside and outside of the booth, with plenty of opportunities to meet prospective customers and partners. We are also very excited to learn about your work, products, and needs, and discuss how LoRaWAN and the LoRa Alliance can be your partner in your IoT journey.