There are a few different ways you can setup your LoRaWAN network. It can be an Enterprise grade private network which is more expensive to install and to run (you pay for traffic transmitted in steps 1-3), or as an open community based network.
With this method traffic transmitted at steps 1-3 has a nominal charge (assuming use of an existing internet connection for step 2, alternatively this step can use a 4G mobile GPRS connection).
One benefit of the community based network is that it can be utilised by everyone, but the main benefit is you also have the ability to utilise any of the 980k+ hotspots already installed to upload your LoRaWAN data through. This gives instant access to the worlds largest and fastest growing wireless network. If you are a local authority then this can be used to encourage local businesses to get their own LoRa equipment online. Any signals received by a gateway are forwarded on to the Helium Cloud, at this point the Helium servers decode the part of the message payload that includes the application it is meant for. Each application is associated with a user, in our case the applications we use run on AWS so that is where our data is sent to. Individual users cannot access anyone else’s data, everything is secured and encrypted.
As the volume of data sent by each device in step [1] is very small (it is usually heavily encoded to reduce the overall size) the radio transmitters on each device only need to be powered up long enough to send this data and can then return to a ‘sleep’ mode. This helps to provide the excellent battery life in the sensor devices, typically about 5 years before a replacement is required. It is this long battery life and simple installation that provides the game-changing solutions offered by a LoRaWan installation. We can remotely monitor battery life in the sensor nodes and schedule in replacements before any data is lost. The graphic below shows the battery voltage in an outdoor temperature sensor over a 4 month period
1 – Device transmits its ‘payload’ of data as required. Can be triggered by time interval, change of value etc.
2 – Payload is received by one or more LoRaWAN gateway devices. As well as the relevant reading e.g. temperature or occupancy status this message also includes details of the LoRaWAN application the message is to be transmitted to.
3 – Duplicate messages received from multiple gateways are removed before the message payload data is transmitted to our application servers in AWS.
4 – This is where the hard work is done, our software decodes the incoming message datastream and ‘tags’ it with metadata before it is logged. Readings are stored in a database to provide logging and historical analysis functions to be run, along with a dashboard service allowing end-users to view/interrogate the recorded data. Dashboards work across all end user devices using Windows, MacOS, Android or IOS and because all our data is stored in the AWS cloud it can be accessed from any device as long as it has an internet connection
Range
We are often surprised ourselves by how well these devices operate, here you can see the results of a mapping application, you can see a transmission from one of our GPS trackers successfully sent an uplink message to a hotspot 22 miles away
Coverage
The benefit of using the Helium network cannot be overstated. Here you can see the redundancy built in to the network when it is rolled out. This screenshot is taken from a point in central Glasgow, where there are already many hotspots installed. You can see that an uplink from this location has been recorded by over 180 hotspots. The uplink being received by any 1 hotspot guarantees it being received, so in this situation even if your own internet fails, or hotspot gets powered down, all data would still be received by our servers.
The Helium Network is the world’s largest and fastest growing contiguous wireless network in history.
You can check for existing gateways here
Active countries
Hotspots
