Electronic Design has put together a guide designed to demystify LoRaWAN, the increasingly widespread open-standard long-range low-power wireless area network technology.
Written to address eleven common misconceptions or confusions surrounding the technology, ranging from confusion between the physical LoRa layer and the LoRaWAN protocol which sits on top of it to real-world examples of the sort of battery longevity and signal range its users can expect, the guide is aimed at those who have heard of LoRaWAN but either not fully investigated it or had previously dismissed the various claims made about the technology’s capabilities as fanciful.
The authors of the piece certainly know their way around the topic: Ribash Chauhan is the global community manager for The Things Network, the global community-driven LoRaWAN platform, while Keith Lee is an engineer at LoRaWAN-compatible development board creator Gumstix – the latter’s Strata LoRaWAN board being used to demonstrate the low power requirements of LoRaWAN devices, measured at 20mA idle and 110mA during transmission.
Those whose interest has been piqued by the piece can find more information on LoRaWAN on the LoRa Alliance website.
Gareth Halfacree is a technology journalist and technical author best known for his work on the Raspberry Pi User Guide and an upcoming book covering the BBC’s micro:bit project. A keen open source advocate and RISC-V fan, Gareth is responsible for curating our fortnightly community round-up posts.