Four big names in industries utilizing the power of IoT and LPWAN – Semtech, Actility, Arad Group, and Deviceroy. Each of these companies, an active member of the LoRa Alliance, an open, non-profit association with the mission to promote and support the global adoption of the LoRaWAN standard.
Together, one big-time collab…
(Sounds a bit like a sports or action movie trailer with an LoRaWAN twist.)
Here are the details:
Together, these four companies actioned the world’s first commercial implementation of (and successful end-to-end interoperability test for) a new, innovative relay feature utilizing LoRaWAN connectivity.
This cutting-edge advancement enables LoRaWAN packets from remote or isolated (or hard-to-reach) devices to be relayed by battery-operated relay nodes. According to the official announcement, this coverage extension “is provided through an already low-cost solution, further lowering the TCO of LoRaWAN deployment.” Experts believe that this relay feature will be a game-changer for LoRaWAN-based use cases like water, gas, and electricity metering. (i.e. where stringent SLAs demand consistent, cost-efficient coverage for all devices within a geographical footprint)
Now, how each of the four companies is harnessing the relay feature:
- Semtech has seamlessly integrated the relay feature for both end-devices and relay nodes into its latest LoRa Basics Modem v4 stack, fortifying the potential for LoRaWAN to provide “low-cost, high-confidence, and exceptional coverage and connectivity across various applications.”
- Actility has integrated the relay feature into its renowned ThingPark Wireless and ThingPark Enterprise network platforms in Release 7.3. This inclusion is also available in the Community edition of ThingPark, a free-to-use solution that can be immediately used by developers to test their own relay implementations utilizing LoRaWAN.
- Arad Group expects to deploy the relay feature within its water meter networks. This has the potential to, according to an Arad representative, “revolutionize the utility management space, offering unparalleled connectivity in even the most challenging environments.”
- Deviceroy, on a related note, plays a pivotal role with Aria Relay, which enables data between remote or isolated devices and their destinations to flow reliably, significantly expanding network coverage.
In successfully completing interoperability testing and achieving reliable end-to-end bidirectional communication with devices that can connect only through a LoRaWAN-based relay, the reliability and seamlessness of the relay feature in real-world scenarios means big things for, well, the Internet of Things and other industries.
Edited by
Greg Tavarez
