When designing an electronic system, the often overlooked and underestimated subject of protection must be considered. In some cases, the designer may be working to meet a certain standard such as IEC 61000-4-2 for electrostatic discharge (ESD) immunity. Equipment which is installed in harsh operating environments, such as remote meters, robotics and telecommunications systems, will require higher levels of lightning protection. These are somewhat obvious requirements. Other protection concerns include short circuits, voltage spikes, dirty power, cable discharge events, and so on. With all these transient threats, a designer may become overwhelmed and ask: how much protection is enough to ensure a reliable system?

It is anticipated that during the course of 2021, in most countries, there will be either lightening or lifting of the current COVID-19 lock-downs, impacting many businesses in respect to staff returning to workplaces facilities. This will require companies to improve facility hygiene and implement safeguards to protect employees from a virus outbreak. Many enterprises – in particular factories, distribution centers and logistics warehouses where people work very closely to each other – will also have to revisit standard operating procedures.

A spectacular light show using 3,051 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or drones, went viral in September 2020, breaking the world record for the most simultaneous airborne UAVs. Not only are drones providing dramatic light shows, but drones are emerging in many useful applications. Industrial manufacturing inspection, agricultural crop inspection, construction site inspection, search and rescue operation, real estate photography, and forest fire management are some examples where drones are utilized and provide invaluable services to humanity.

It’s been almost a year since the official launch of Semtech’s ASIC platform for Pro AV extension, routing and distribution. Two dedicated platforms were launched: AVX for point-to-point AV extension applications over copper category cable and optical fiber, and the BlueRiver® AVP series of devices for AV-over-IP and Software Defined Video Over Ethernet (SDVoE™) network-based applications. And what a year it has been! Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, customer uptake and product developments have certainly exceeded expectations, and 2021 will see the launch of an exciting range of Pro AV products powered by the new AVX and BlueRiver AVP ASICs.

Building upon Semtech’s previous collaboration with Amazon on its network, Amazon Sidewalk, Semtech has today announced a collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to enable LoRaWAN® network connectivity on AWS IoT Core, its managed Cloud service that lets connected devices easily and securely interact with Cloud applications and other devices.

The LoRaWAN open specification is a widely adopted low power, wide area networking (LPWAN) protocol based on Semtech’s LoRa® chipsets, leveraging the unlicensed radio spectrum in the Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) band. The LoRa Alliance®, a non-profit association, drives the standardization and global harmonization of the LoRaWAN protocol.

At Semtech we are focused on enabling developers to rapidly innovate by delivering products and tools that make it easy for Cloud-first, mobile and embedded developers to develop Internet of Things (IoT) solutions. AWS IoT Core for LoRaWAN delivers a deep integration of devices featuring the LoRaWAN protocol with AWS IoT Core to provide developers with a “plug & play” way to combine the strengths of the LoRaWAN protocol with the deep capabilities of AWS IoT services.

Once gateways are provisioned and connected, this built-in integration automatically and securely routes device data to AWS IoT Core Rules Engine and AWS IoT Analytics, accelerating developers’ ability to build rich, data-driven IoT applications.

The LoRa Alliance®, an open, non-profit global association that develops, maintains and promotes the LoRaWAN® protocol for low power wide area networks (LPWANs), has expanded its guidelines to include Long Range - Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (LR-FHSS) data rates. The LR-FHSS rates significantly increases network capacity and robustness to interference – opening the door to new deployment opportunities across the globe.

For those of you that have been in Pro AV for decades, confusion is not something new. Remember the analog sunset? Remember HDCP? Remember going over-IP? Fortunately, confusion is a phenomenon that disappears over time.

Smart home automation makes it possible to proactively heat your home from the road, automatically close your garage each evening and conserve energy, among many other modern conveniences. 

With leading long range and low power, LoRaWAN networks are being utilized today in hundreds of innovative applications for smart cities, homes and buildings, agriculture, metering, supply chain and logistics, and more. The LoRa Alliance® is committed to enabling the large-scale deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) applications operating on the LoRaWAN® protocol. Members benefit from a vibrant ecosystem of active contributors offering solutions, products and services to create new and sustainable business opportunities worldwide.

The European Committee for Standardization (CEN) has officially created a new working group under its Technical Committee TC294 to specify a new adaptation layer for M-Bus protocol used mainly in smart water meters, smart gas meters and smart heat meters. This new working group, called CEN TC294 WG7, is led by expert from Birdz, a subsidiary of Nova Veolia, a successful leader in the European smart metering ecosystem, and member of the LoRa Alliance®. In 2019, Semtech hosted a webinar with Birdz to highlight its proven use cases for transforming municipal water distribution networks leveraging the LoRaWAN® protocol for greater efficiency and cost savings.