There are a number of standard and disruptive IoT radio technologies available. Each technology suits a certain set of tasks. For example, do you want to transmit large amounts of data or you need just a couple of parameters? Is your gateway/antenna located thousands of meters away or is it on the roof of the neighbouring building?
At MClimate we strive to be technology-agnostic and are committed to offer the best solution for the problem.
Technology
Range
Throughput
Power consumption
Average Battery Life
Topology
On-going cost
Shipped devices (2019)
10-15km
0,3-50kbps
Ultra Low
10+ years
Star
One-time
45M
10km
Up to 200kbps
Up to 1Mbps
Ultra Low
Medium
5-10 years
<1 year
Star
Recuring
16M
7M
10-100m
54 Mbps
Very High
2-3 months
Star
One-time
-
30-300m
125kbps
Ultra Low
Energy harvesting
Star/Mesh
One-time
Unknown
1
Sensors
and Actuators
Battery-operated devices that sense and control the environment.
2
Gateway/Antenna/Router
Communicates with end-devices and relays traffic to the Internet. A mobile operator network can be used or one can use open-source options.
3
Network Operator Cloud
Collects data from devices and can send commands to them.
4
IoT Platform
Receives information from Network Operator Cloud and displays it in an appropriate manner for the purpose. It manages communication of schedules, commands, et cetera to devices.
The wider the coverage, the better and cheaper the IoT infrastructure. With LoRaWAN, the range is nearly 8 km in urban settings and 15 km in suburban areas. With NB-IoT you can rely on existing network provider stations installed in your area.
The LoRaWAN standard is based on an open protocol approach managed by the LoRa Alliance which supervises the development of the standard and ensures interoperability. Moreover, LoRaWAN operates in a public radio frequency spectrum, which allows you to use it without special licenses.
LoRaWAN - wireless, easy to set up and able to support thousands of connected end-devices and millions of messages transmitted. Its fast deployment allows for large scale projects to come to live quicker and cheaper. NB-IoT is also a great option if you decide to partner with a telecom as they will be taking care of the network infrastructure.
Specifically designed to dramatically reduce the power consumption and extend the battery life, LoRaWAN and NB-IoT based data transmission and reception enables devices to run on batteries for 10+ years depending on the specific application.
LoRa and NB-IoT radio signals can pass through obstacles and allow deep indoor penetration and adds the ability to reach sensors monitoring water or gas meters located underground.
All technologies we use adhere to state-of-the-art principles: use of standard, well-vetted algorithms, and end-to-end security ensuring mutual authentication, integrity protection and confidentiality. We build an additional security layer on top on device and cloud level.
Fully bidirectional communication enables a wide variety of uses cases requiring uplinks and downlinks. Sending data to networks and receiving information in return, LoRaWAN and NB-IoT devices can deliver status messages even to remote locations.
The LoRaWAN open standard combined with cost-free operation frequencies and low-cost base stations allows operators to roll out networks quickly and with minimum investment.
