IoT For All Podcast · 25 Feb 2025 · 27m · Episode 371
Alper Yegin, President and CEO of the LoRa Alliance, discusses the state of LoRaWAN in 2025, highlighting over 100 million deployed devices and 50% year-over-year growth in major networks like Actility and Zenner. He details the technology's dominance in smart buildings and facility management, citing deployments by Starbucks, AT&T, and Rentokil Initial, while addressing misconceptions about security and global reach. Yegin also explains how LoRaWAN supports AI and edge computing through vibration sensors in oil and gas, and outlines the future vision of LoRaWAN becoming a ubiquitous utility integrated with satellite networks.
Where this conversation describes AI being used to build or deliver a product. Part of the AI in practice tracker.
Engineering & simulationAI on vibration sensors
Vibration sensors running AI algorithms analyze rotating equipment data locally to detect anomalies and transmit only event alerts via LoRaWAN, reducing data transmission needs in harsh RF environments.
“vibration sensors using AI, going back to your origin question and also temperature sensors and pressure sensors. And that has proved to be one of the areas that lower one is shining as well.”
Speaker 2 · Hear it at 15:10
established companies
Other shows on the same ground, closest first.
Wienke Giezeman, co-founder and CEO of The Things Network, and Dave Kjendal, CTO/COO of Senet and LoRa Alliance board member, discuss the LoRaWAN protocol for open IoT. They explain why LoRaWAN’s low power, spread spectrum modulation, and lack of vendor lock-in make it superior to NB-IoT and Sigfox for wide-area applications like agriculture and smart cities. The conversation highlights the technical architecture, including secure elements like the Microchip ATECC608, and the business case for open standards versus proprietary 'walled gardens.'
Alastair Williamson, CEO of Wyld Networks, explains how his company created an affordable satellite IoT solution by combining LoRaWAN technology with low-earth orbit satellites to enable global connectivity. He details the 'beaconing' mechanism that keeps sensors in sleep mode for 2-5 years on battery power, allowing data collection in areas without terrestrial coverage. Williamson highlights key use cases in precision agriculture, such as soil moisture monitoring to reduce water waste, and industrial applications like monitoring oil pipe corrosion for Chevron. He also discusses the company's roadmap to launch its commercial service in late 2022 and expand into carbon sequestration monitoring.
Richard Ginus of TWTG explains the mechanics of LoRaWAN, detailing how chirp spread spectrum modulation enables long-range, low-power communication for sensor networks. He discusses the trade-offs between LoRa, Sigfox, and NB-IoT, covering regulatory constraints like the 1% duty cycle in Europe and the architecture of gateways, network servers, and application servers. Ginus also shares practical insights on battery life optimization, adaptive data rates, and the use of indoor solar energy harvesting modules.
Zach Supalla, CEO of Particle, discusses the launch of the Particle Tachyon, a 5G single-board computer that leverages Qualcomm Snapdragon hardware with mainline Linux support to bridge the gap between microcontrollers and complex IoT applications. He explains Particle's 10-year evolution from the Spark Core to a comprehensive edge-to-cloud platform, emphasizing their focus on making scalable, secure, and reliable IoT infrastructure accessible to both hobbyists and enterprise customers. The episode also covers the Blues LoRaWAN Starter Kit, highlighting its ease of use for building low-power wireless networks via a unified JSON API.
EE Times editors Nitin Dhadwal and Anne-Françoise Pele report from the MEMS & Sensors Summit in Grenoble, highlighting trends like sensor fusion with AI, 3D sensing, and medical applications such as subretinal chips. The episode also features a discussion with Bruno Thomas of the Wireless Broadband Alliance and Remy Loran of Semtech on how Wi-Fi and LoRaWAN protocols complement each other for IoT connectivity. Finally, Balaji Oja warns that the semiconductor memory market's notorious boom-and-bust cycles have returned, citing significant revenue declines at Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron.
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