ESG (5)

Transforming the Smart Building with LoRaWAN®

The emergence of smart buildings is not a new development. Building automation has been around (typically behind the scenes) since the mid-80s, having evolved from BACnet to a host of IEEE protocols, and recently from strictly wired, to both wired and wireless sensors. Building Management Systems (BMS) have played an important role in this evolution. However, historically these have had a limited role outside the realm of managing HVAC systems and the other physical operations within a building.

Enabling Sustainable Agriculture in the Malaysian Highlands

Inconsistency in crop yield is a major concern for farmers. Even with green houses presenting a controlled environment for crop growth, pests and disease are unavoidable. Additionally, a farmer’s lack of knowledge on the conditions in the farm’s soil presents further challenges. The amount of fertilizer used on crops is often left up to the farmer’s discretion. This usually results in over- or under-dosing, which affects crop growth directly. Human error has the largest impact on a crop's yield, with inefficient or inconsistent irrigation and errors in fertilization having serious negative effects on crop health.

In the past five years, farmers in the Cameron Highlands, which are located 250 kilometers from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, have taken the initiative to implement a simple monitoring system for their farms’ soil health. However, cost and connectivity presented a serious challenge for the farmers. Smarter solutions and machine-to-machine (M2M) services are often expensive and not available in rural areas. End users, typically the farmers themselves, are naturally very concerned with a solution’s power consumption, availability and reliability, as these factors directly affect the cost to deploy and operate these solutions. For the Cameron Highlands, the region’s various hills and valleys created additional challenges for service providers and reduced network signal strength. As a result, the farmers turned to solutions based on Semtech’s LoRa® devices and the LoRaWAN® protocol.

Part 2: The Global Rise of Smart Gas Metering

The market for smart utility meters is growing at a rapid pace. A recent report by ABI Research predicts there will be an installed base of 1.34 billion meters by 2023*. IHS Markit forecasts almost 50 million smart water meters will ship globally in 2023, a number which is roughly four times its size in 2017. Year over year, the number of new meter shipments for water, gas, heat and electricity is increasing at a rate of four to five percent according to IHS. Globally, the proportion of smart meters will soon exceed half of all meters shipped annually. The largest utility adopters of Internet of Things (IoT) technology for smart metering devices are electricity (64 percent), followed by gas (38 percent) and then water (26 percent). Behind these strong growth numbers, the adoption of smarter technologies for metering is predicted to continue for the foreseeable future.

Lacuna Space Shoots for the Stars with LoRaWAN®

Semtech’s LoRa® devices and the LoRaWAN® protocol offer several advantages for the Internet of Things (IoT) that have enabled it to lead in a competitive marketplace. Perhaps the most important of these advantages is LoRa devices’ unique capacity for long-range data communication. A single LoRa-based gateway provides deep indoor connectivity in underground or city environments, and connectivity to LoRa-enabled end nodes from up to 30 miles away in rural environments. This is especially important in parts of the world where Cellular connectivity is scarce or nonexistent. In places such as these, LoRaWAN-based networking and LoRa-enabled end nodes provide the quickest to deploy and most cost-efficient option for IoT connectivity, enabling smarter solutions that could not otherwise exist.

CRA Leads LoRa®’s Growth Efforts in the Czech Republic

The Czech Republic in Central Europe has 10.6 million inhabitants over an area of 78,866 square kilometers (30,450 sq. miles). Since the 1970s, Czech Radiocommunications (CRA), based in Prague, has been the sole provider of broadcasting television and radio to citizens nationwide.

Part 1: LoRa® Leads the Way for Smarter Water Management

In Paris this November, Semtech will be again exhibiting at European Utility Week, the world’s foremost annual smart utilities and metering conference. Last year in Vienna, the conference drew more than 12,000 visitors and this year’s attendance is expected to increase by half. We will be among the over 800 exhibiting companies at the Paris event, and will be showcasing Semtech’s LoRa® devices and the LoRaWAN® protocol for innovative utility metering applications. This blog is part one of a three-part series on the benefits of LoRa for utilities leading up to the event.

Extending the Life of Your IoT Device with LoRa®

The Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly gaining momentum. Predictions indicate total spending on IoT technologies will reach $2.5 trillion in 2022, with the total number of devices deployed estimated to be in the billions. In a world with a billion connected devices, the reality is that many will need to be deployed in hard-to-reach places making the ability to service them very challenging and expensive. To accomplish this, developers and system integrators have to take every possible measure to provide technology that will help devices operate as efficiently as possible and prolong device life with future-proof designs.

BlueRiver Technology: Enabling Medical AV Solutions

Semtech’s BlueRiver® technology is transforming the matrix switch by delivering high fidelity and low latency AV solutions. These unique advantages are critical in medical applications such as surgery and accurate diagnosis. With BlueRiver-enabled Software Defined Video over Ethernet (SDVoE™) solutions, any video source up to 4K resolution is available anywhere at any time. Content from surgical scopes, X-ray and CT/MRI scans, patient records, and even custom signage and infotainment can be distributed via low cost 10G Ethernet networks to provide the most flexible medical AV systems.

IoT Startups Awarded for LoRa-based Innovations

Mobile World Congress, one of the year’s biggest exhibitions of cutting edge wireless technology, recently took place this last February in Barcelona, drawing hundreds of industry-leading companies from across the globe. With so many events taking place over the conference’s five-day span, it was easy to get lost in the blur of demonstrations and announcements. While the Semtech booth was abuzz with fans of our leading LoRa® devices and wireless radio frequency technology (LoRa Technology) for the Internet of Things (IoT) eager to catch a demo, one conference event stood out to me as one of LoRa Technology’s biggest success stories at MWC, the 10th Innovation World Cup.

LoRa Enables Millions of IoT Devices in Latin America

Latin America’s Internet of Things (IoT) market is expected to be worth $44.4 billion in 2019, which is a jump of almost triple from $14.2 billion in 2013. Semtech’s LoRa® devices and wireless radio frequency technology (LoRa Technology) is leading the charge to enable solution providers and customers in Latin America to realize this value by leveraging LoRa Technology’s open LoRaWAN® protocol, vibrant ecosystem, flexible deployment models, and low power, long range capabilities. In this blog I’m excited to share some examples of the innovation the LoRaWAN ecosystem in Latin America is producing, and the value that these solutions are delivering to customers.