LoRaWAN technology has a wide range of applications. The sky is the limit when it comes to creating LoRa IoT solutions to help your business run more smoothly. This blog post covers a few examples of how different types of LoRa sensors can be used, and some of the advantages of switching to LoRa technology.

Smart Metering / Energy Monitoring

• Reduces the need for traditional manual processes allowing instant, remote updates of electricity, gas, water & heat consumption.
• Retrofit sensor systems to existing client infrastructure.
• Improve efficiency by highlighting and targeting areas of unusually high energy consumption.

Environmental Monitoring

• LPWAN technology is perfectly suited for environmental monitoring due to the wide range of solutions available. Gather data on temperature, humidity, light, air quality (carbon dioxide, PM2.5 etc), smoke detection & water quality to name but a few.
• Carbon monoxide sensors for homes managed by others such as Housing Associations or landlords to ensure the occupants are living in safe conditions.

Transport & Asset Tracking

• In the realm of transport infrastructure, railways are big users of sensor networks. These can be used, for example, to monitor potentially damaging vibrations in bridges, through deformation of the tracks, to movements in embankments that could indicate potential collapse.
• Keeping track of anything from logistics equipment (trolleys, fork lift trucks etc) right through to entire fleets of vehicles by installing a discreet, long lasting GPS tracker. The sensor not only tells you the location of the equipment in real time, it can also ensure they are being used more efficiently which could in turn assist with fleet management & inventory decisions.

Agriculture

• Even agriculture gets in on the act, with smart farms monitoring soil moisture levels and crop health, providing machinery diagnostics, keeping an eye on crop storage conditions and tracking & monitoring livestock.
• Temperature sensors could be used to ensure the optimal conditions for Chicken Farmers to maximise their yield.
• A smart sensor system can help maximise a farmers yield therefore reducing water consumption, optimising the use of fertilizers and pesticides which increases production & lowers costs.

Water Monitoring

• BT have announced they are launching a Smart Water project with Northumbrian Water which will be deployed across Sunderland, with around 150 sensors installed to capture water flow, pressure and quality enabling Northumbrian Water to gain visibility into operational insights.
• Just last month water meters were deployed across the south east to gather real time information on water capacity levels, consumption and pass through; this is fed back to Icosa Water via a smart metering platform.

Beer Keg Supply Chain Optimisation

• A novel application developed at the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia, involved fitting smart sensors to beer kegs. Called the Binary Beer project, it uses LoRaWAN to transmit the fill levels and environmental conditions of kegs back to the brewer in real time.