As technology evolves ever more, smart solutions arise as a way of saving energy. A wide variety of IoT objects connect our homes, from lighting, heating, to even our fridges. Sensors are no exception, with options for radiators, humidity, or CO2 levels, amongst many things. While a connected fridge makes life easier, a connected sensor helps with having a safer, cleaner and better life. Let’s take a look at one of the most up-to-date solutions used by Enectiva: the LoRaWAN.
Sensors Technology:
As mentioned above, the variety of sensors is vast, as there are a multitude of parameters to monitor. Any interior space is adapted to use such sensors. A school might need to control their temperature to cut on costs and have more funds for education purposes, making, for example, the Vicki-LoRaWAN for radiator valve control a significant asset. Another example would be a HT sensor, which would help tracking humidity and temperature, which would be essential in factories where humidity conditions are an important detail. And just about any place could use air quality, CO2, or a flood sensor to avoid any bad or unhealthy surprises. An unusually large water bill can be considered as an unhealthy surprise, yes.
These sensors make detection and response rate much faster by automating all the steps and keeping a clear overview of the situation at all times. It is no longer needed to guess the right temperature by randomly rotating the temperature controller in hope of a more comfortable setting, wasting a large amount of energy. The use of schedules, timers, and alerts, are just an example of how these automated sensors can help you do anything but worry about your energy consumption.
The specifics of the LoRaWAN technology
But how does a LoRaWAN work? First, the LoRa acronym stands for “long range”, as the technology uses a low-power wide-area network to transmit data. The WAN part of the name simply defines a communication protocol and a system architecture to ensure a smooth communication between all the connected devices. More than a thousand of these devices may be linked to a LoRaWAN gateway, which has a range of 8 km in urban areas and 15 km in suburban areas. In the case of sensors in a home or in a factory, they will need a LoRaWAN gateway within the range in order to transfer their data. Once this data is collected, the hub will put it in a cloud storage and make it accessible to the users of the Enectiva software. This is how one can look at the data on their phone and change the parameters directly with a few clicks.
Why use a LoRaWAN Gateway?
Let’s dive more specifically into the LoRaWAN’s advantages of use. First, as briefly mentioned above, it can easily be operated from a computer or a smartphone, making its use easy as a breeze. The bidirectional communication makes it possible to both receive data from the meters as well as sending them orders from the software user.
Moreover, the sensors do not need a constant electrical input thanks to their battery which decreases the risk of dysfunctioning and increases significantly the usage life.
Adantages in a nutshell:
- Wireless connections
- Long range of operation
- Advantageous to set schedules, timers and alerts
- Bi-directional communication
- The sensors are operated by the battery which have the long shelf life