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WAN network for the area. The long-range
technology allowed for many more flood net-
work sensors than a simpler wireless technol-
ogy with a far shorter range, or sensors that
made use of commercial cellular networks for
backhaul.
The Things Network is planning to run other
proofs of concept that range from crowd-
funded solar electricity generation to keeping
track of garden tools. The peer-to-peer lend-
ing service Peerby, for example, wants to run
a trial on the Amsterdam network that will let
users check where implements they have lent
to other service users are being used or stored.
WeShareSolar wants to connect the solar panels
it installs to the network to let usersmonitor the
electricity production of them all in real time.
And QwikSense aims to use sensors to monitor
temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide lev-
els in buildings to help reduce sick leave. In the
UK, Reading is one of the cities also set to ben-
efit from the ability of communities to come
together to provide wireless network services.
TTN Reading has performed end-to-end tests
of the network and early adopters have initi-
ated projects such as performing on-the-fly sig-
nal strength measurements around the city, as
well as one to attach tiny transceivers to hedge-
hogs to provide researchers with information
on their movement and development. Another
idea is to use the LoRa network to support
smarter car alarms. Instead of unnecessarily
waking up neighbours when the car detects a
possible intruder, a device in the car attached
to the alarm could send text alerts direct to the
owner instead.
The openness of the LoRa means there will
be many more options for IoT wireless wide-
area networks. Early in 2016, German start-up
Digimondo, working together with Semtech,
organised a demonstration of LoRa-enabled
IoT applications at the influential Embedded
World exhibition in Nuremberg. The south
German city became the latest in a list of roll-
outs that started with Hamburg and Berlin
and will later extend to rural coverage of the
country. In the demonstration, LoRa gate-
way received messages from vehicles driving
around Nuremberg, letting visitors track their
locations in real time on monitors installed
on the Semtech and Microchip booths. One
of the key reasons for Digimondo electing
to base its IoT network on LoRa was to help
improve communication with its initial focus
on smart meters, many of which are often
installed inside buildings and may also be
underground. The LoRa signal is able to pen-
etrate far enough below ground to communi-
cate with buried devices such as water meters.
Magnetic parking sensors are also likely to
benefit from the reach of the LoRa protocol.
In Italy, utility company Enevo chose LoRa
earlier this year to help drive its business of
providing waste disposal bins with greater lev-
els of intelligence. Sensors in the bins measure
waste levels so that near-empty bins are not
collected unnecessarily and that those with
high levels are served before they overspill.
As LoRa extends from cities into the rural
environment, farmers may choose to add their
own gateways to the network. Agriculture
is one of the many activities that can benefit
from the widespread use of sensors. Sensors
that monitor the temperature of soil or crops
as well as environmental conditions such as
pH can help farmers determine where and
when to irrigate and to identify areas where
pesticide or herbicide applications need to be
focused. The long reach of LoRa signals will
allow even big farms to gain coverage using
only a few gateways on even large tracts of
land. At the same time, they can provide wire-
less IoT infrastructure to their neighbours
in villages that otherwise would not have an
affordable connection.
Thanks to its open nature in which commu-
nities can become operators of their own
infrastructure, LoRa is enabling the IoT to
deliver on its promise to supply applications
that can create smart cities. And, thanks to the
long range of LoRa, that smartness can easily
spread into the rural environment.
n
Structure of a typical LoRa network for IoT applications
