Another CES is in the books, and as usual, it was a blur of visionary concepts demonstrated alongside very useful, near-term technology. While much has already been written about CES 2020, I will focus my impressions on the connectivity technology choices for the smart home and building. While the market continues to evolve clever ways to present, manipulate and use data to make our lives and businesses simpler and more efficient, feeding the appetite of the big data engine presents many challenges in the smart building connectivity market.
Traditionally, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, and Z-Wave have dominated the indoor connectivity markets. While they all have their own pros and cons in terms of power consumption and security, one thing they all have in common is a lack of range for many applications. In the commercial arena, range is an important factor considering the size of most spaces. For homes, many Internet of Things (IoT) applications can extend to the periphery of the home or into the yard. Generally, these are battery operated devices which are well beyond the range of legacy connectivity technologies without installing additional repeater or mesh points. These applications include those for garages, door locks, outdoor lighting, pet geo-fencing, smart metering, leak detection, connected pest traps, soil chemistry, swimming pools, and etc.
Semtech’s LoRa® devices and the LoRaWAN® protocol provide an ideal platform to address these connectivity challenges. LoRa-based gateways easily extend coverage hundreds of yards or meters around the home. In commercial buildings, thousands of square feet and multiple floor coverage is easily attainable. Of course, LoRa devices can also address traditional IoT applications in the home, such as motion detection, contact closures and lighting. In the B2B market, desk and office utilization, predictive cleaning, fridge temperature monitoring, and employee locators, are all applications demanding the long range and long battery life offered by LoRa devices.
At CES, we saw exhibitions from myDevices, Tektelic and YoSmart showcase various LoRa-based sensors and solutions for the smart building market segment.
LoRa devices are expected to be a significant player in the in-building wireless IoT market for both commercial and consumer segments. If your existing solution offering is suffering from poor coverage and/or battery life, LoRa devices may be your answer.
Explore real-world smart home and building solutions based on Semtech’s LoRa devices.
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