22 Oct 2026 By: Faizan Khan
Having attended The Things Conference for several years, one of the biggest changes I've noticed is just how far the event and the wider LoRaWAN® ecosystem have come.
What began around nine years ago as a community-driven gathering for engineers, developers and technology enthusiasts has evolved into a major industry event, attracting commercial leaders, solution providers, investors and senior executives.
The conversations have changed, too. While technical innovation remains central to the conference, discussions increasingly focus on business growth, investment, scalability and the measurable value IoT can deliver.
This year's event highlighted several developments that demonstrate how LoRaWAN® is becoming an increasingly mature and commercially established technology.
One of the recurring themes at The Things Conference 2026 was the continued commercial growth of the IoT industry.
Sessions explored company valuations, mergers, acquisitions and investment activity, highlighting growing interest from technology organisations, telecommunications providers and infrastructure businesses.
We're seeing consolidation among connectivity providers, increased investment in sensor manufacturers and larger enterprises acquiring specialist IoT expertise to strengthen their capabilities.
These developments reflect a wider shift. IoT is no longer viewed simply as an emerging technology, but as an increasingly important part of mainstream business operations.
Perhaps one of the most impressive takeaways was the scale LoRaWAN® has achieved.
According to figures shared by the LoRa Alliance, LoRaWAN® has surpassed 150 million connected devices worldwide, with adoption growing at approximately 25% compound annual growth rate (CAGR).
The wider ecosystem continues to expand:
With the LoRa Alliance reporting around 125 million deployed devices just a year earlier, the growth is significant.
LoRaWAN® is now supporting large-scale commercial deployments across utilities, smart buildings, industrial operations, agriculture, logistics and smart cities.
The focus is shifting from proving the technology works to understanding how businesses can deploy it efficiently, scale successfully and achieve measurable returns.
One of the highlights of The Things Conference is its well-known 'Wall of Fame', showcasing hundreds of sensors and connected devices.
While traditional applications such as temperature, humidity, occupancy and leak detection remain important, the range of available solutions has expanded considerably.
This year's showcase included water quality monitoring buoys, fire extinguisher monitoring, lone-worker safety devices, advanced asset tracking, smart building technologies, industrial automation and environmental monitoring solutions.
This diversity demonstrates how LoRaWAN® has evolved beyond simply collecting sensor data. It's increasingly being used to solve specific operational challenges across a wide range of industries.
For solution providers and system integrators, this creates opportunities to develop more specialised solutions that meet genuine customer needs.
Another interesting development was the growing use of edge computing and intelligent processing within low-power IoT devices.
Traditionally, sensors have collected information and transmitted it to a central platform for analysis. Newer devices can increasingly process data locally, using capabilities such as AI-assisted event detection, vision-based monitoring, gesture recognition and anomaly detection.
For example, a vision-based sensor could identify a particular activity and transmit a simple event notification through LoRaWAN®, rather than sending images or video footage.
This enables more sophisticated applications while retaining key LoRaWAN® benefits, including long-range communication, low power consumption and long battery life.
By transmitting only relevant information, edge intelligence can also reduce connectivity demands and open up applications that previously required more power-intensive technologies.
Perhaps the clearest indication of the industry's maturity is how customer conversations have evolved.
Previously, discussions focused heavily on gateways, connectivity, network infrastructure and device capabilities.
Today, businesses increasingly want to understand how IoT can:
Technical capabilities remain important, but customers are increasingly interested in the outcomes those technologies can achieve.
Rather than asking what IoT can do, organisations are asking which problems it can solve, what it will cost and how quickly they can expect a return on investment.
This shift towards measurable business value is one of the strongest signs of a maturing industry.
From an Alliot perspective, The Things Conference 2026 reinforced many of the trends we're already seeing across our customers, suppliers and channel partners.
The continued expansion of the LoRaWAN® ecosystem creates several opportunities.
Expanding our solution portfolio: As new devices and technologies enter the market, we can help our partners access a broader range of solutions and address more specialised customer requirements.
Supporting smart buildings and sustainability: Growing demand for energy efficiency, environmental monitoring and smarter building operations presents opportunities for IoT solutions that deliver measurable cost savings.
Strengthening industry partnerships: Events such as The Things Conference allow us to engage with existing suppliers, explore emerging innovations and identify technologies that could benefit our channel partners.
Helping businesses enter the IoT market: As commercial adoption grows, organisations need support selecting suitable hardware, connectivity and supporting technologies.
At Alliot, our role goes beyond supplying IoT hardware. Through our technical expertise, supplier relationships and experience supporting connected deployments, we help our partners identify the right technologies, overcome challenges and develop scalable solutions that deliver genuine value.
The Things Conference 2026 demonstrated just how far the LoRaWAN® industry has progressed.
The ecosystem is expanding, devices are becoming more sophisticated, and commercial adoption continues to grow.
Most importantly, the conversation has moved beyond experimentation. Organisations are increasingly focused on where IoT can deliver the greatest return, which operational challenges to prioritise and how successful deployments can be scaled.
For those of us who have followed LoRaWAN® over the years, it's encouraging to see the technology evolve from an enthusiast-driven community into a mature, commercially viable ecosystem supporting millions of connected devices worldwide.
For Alliot and our partners, this presents an exciting opportunity to turn emerging IoT innovations into practical, scalable solutions that deliver measurable business outcomes.
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