LoRaWAN Technology Solutions

What is LoRaWAN?

LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) is a radio standard for battery-powered sensors that send small amounts of data over long distances. It belongs to the LPWAN family and is maintained by the LoRa Alliance. In Europe, LoRaWAN operates licence-free in the 868 MHz band. Sensors transmit to one or more gateways, which forward the messages to a network server, from where the data reaches your application via MQTT or HTTP.

How LoRaWAN is used in the IIoT

LoRaWAN is strongest wherever many distributed measuring points deliver small values infrequently and cabling is expensive or impossible: fill levels of tanks and silos, temperature and humidity in halls and cold rooms, electricity, gas and water meter readings, space occupancy or condition monitoring on pumps and motors. The sensors are small, quick to install and often run for several years on one battery. Because one gateway can cover an entire industrial site, LoRaWAN is particularly attractive for retrofitting existing facilities.

LoRaWAN or NB-IoT?

Both are LPWAN technologies but differ in their operating model. LoRaWAN uses licence-free spectrum, you can run the network yourself and pay no per-device fee. In return, you have to install gateways and ensure coverage yourself. NB-IoT runs on a mobile operator's network: no infrastructure of your own, but a SIM card and ongoing cost per device. Within a single site, LoRaWAN is usually the better fit; for widely distributed individual locations, NB-IoT often is.

How a LoRaWAN network is structured

A LoRaWAN network has a star topology. Sensors transmit their messages to all gateways within range without binding to a specific one. The gateways forward the packets via Ethernet or cellular to the network server, which removes duplicates, checks encryption and passes the message to the application server. From there, the decoded measurements reach the dashboard, database or IoT platform via MQTT, webhook or API. Every message is end-to-end encrypted with AES-128.

What to consider when choosing

First decide whether to build your own network or use a public or municipal LoRaWAN network. Next comes the network server, such as The Things Stack, ChirpStack or a vendor solution. For sensors, battery life, ingress protection and transmission interval matter, since the duty cycle in the 868 MHz band limits how often a device may transmit. LoRaWAN is not designed for control commands or real-time data. If you operate in heavily disturbed industrial environments, also compare mioty.