2.4 LoRa Technology for IoT Applications

The embedded developers have a wide variety of wireless technologies to connect a product to the Internet of Things (IoT). Each technology suits different applications, requiring developers to carefully consider factors such as range, data rate, cost, power consumption, and wireless network capacity. Each wireless technology has both strong and weak points. For example, standard Wi-Fi can transmit large amounts of data at high speeds, but it has a limited range. A cellular network combines high speed and long range, but it is power hungry. The low power wireless networks are a key enabler for IoT.

For IoT applications, the LoRa technology’s critical advantage over the established wireless protocols such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth® technologies is long range, low data rate, and low power consumption of the connected end-devices.

These unique features of LoRa makes it an interesting candidate for smart sensing technology in applications such as health monitoring, smart metering, urban light control, and environment monitoring, etc., as well as in industrial applications. Thus, the LoRa wireless technology is essential for battery-operated wireless applications in the IoT, Machine-to-Machine (M2M) market segments.

Additionally, the LoRaWAN network protocol is an open standard, supported by the LoRa Alliance. This enables the developers to develop cost-effective and customized protocol for any specific needs of the IoT applications.