In LPWAN technology, there is nothing hotter than Lora Sigfox NB-IoT. what are the advantages of each of these three technologies Lora Sigfox NB-IoT in the IoT trend? Who will be the best partner in your area of expertise?
Wireless communication technology is the transmission foundation of IoT. As the big application of smart city becomes popular development, various technologies are pushing forward to seize the IoT market.
IoT, big data, AI artificial intelligence are some of the terms that the relevant industry personnel must be familiar with.
In the technical architecture of IoT, sensing is the most basic core source, no matter in agriculture, industry, construction, transportation, medical and other fields, in order to let the sensed data be analyzed through AI and then form related applications, first of all, suitable transmission technology and network domain must be deployed to collect and return huge amount of environmental data.
WI-FI is suitable for the transmission of a large amount of data, such as audio and video transmission or AR/VR, and is also the basis of general wireless network, the disadvantage is that it consumes a lot of power; Bluetooth is mostly used for personal wearable devices and is more mature in the field of sound; ZigBee and Z-Wave are fruitful in industrial, construction and other automatic control applications.
Lora Sigfox NB-IoT in LPWAN
Long-distance + power-saving features, LPWAN to solve the IoT transmission problems
When it comes to wireless networks, what comes to mind, in addition to WI-FI, is probably the mobile communication network of cell phones. Nowadays, communication technology is about to enter 5G, which requires more bandwidth, higher speed, lower latency, and of course, more power consumption, and since it corresponds to human-to-human communication, the data transmission is more intensive and the exchange volume is more massive.
For M2M communication, since the deployment range of devices is usually wider and wireless devices must avoid frequent battery replacement, LPWAN (Low Power Wide Area Network) technology has emerged, with its small data volume, long-distance transmission, and power-saving features, making a splash in IoT applications.
Earlier wireless transmission technologies, such as WI-FI, ZigBee, and Z-Wave, have a communication distance of at most 100 meters, and when used in the field of smart homes, it is necessary to install additional antennas or relay stations for signal enhancement.
For smart city-related applications, such as environmental monitoring or asset tracking, LPWAN technology with a transmission distance of up to 20 km can obviously reduce the deployment cost significantly, as only a few stations can cover a large area.
The most popular LPWAN technologies are LoRa Sigfox and NB-IoT. These three technologies have their own advantages, and owners can choose the most suitable communication technology according to different fields and usage requirements.
Low power consumption and high range transmission: LoRa vs Sigfox
Lora
Just like the technical features of LPWAN, both LoRa and Sigfox have long-range and low power consumption, which can extend the battery life and form a wide range of message transmission.
Both use the license-free Sub-1GHz ISM band, which does not require additional license fees, and the hardware manufacturing costs of both technologies are decreasing due to breakthroughs in electronic chip manufacturing technology.
LoRaWAN is a network standard jointly promoted by various industry consortia, providing open technology that allows individual applications to be developed as long as key content is obtained.
Unlike the openness of LoRa, Sigfox is a technology developed by the French company of the same name, which is in control of the operation and deployment of the core network, with the intention of deploying network bases around the world as an independent operator, and is currently available in 36 countries and regions with connected domains and devices.
In terms of type, LoRa is like a small private network domain with a transmission distance of up to 20 kilometers, and as long as it has the technology, it can set up its own base stations with more freedom.
Sigfox
Sigfox, on the other hand, is a blueprint for expanding network bases with global operations in mind and can provide users with existing network deployment and cloud services, requiring additional monthly fees, which is more costly than LoRa, but the platform solution is complete and does not require additional network deployment.
Sigfox has a transmission distance of up to 50 km, the widest range among the three technologies. However, in order to achieve the goal of low power consumption, both LoRa and Sigfox have a limit on the number of daily transmissions, and the transmission time in a day is very short, making them suitable for use in areas without real-time communication needs, such as sensors that return data on a fixed daily basis and can measure specific environmental data such as temperature and humidity, PM2.5, etc. With long-distance and less frequent transmission mode, it can form a larger area for IoT applications.
NB-IoT
Another technology that is hotly discussed in the IoT industry chain is NB-IoT. The biggest difference between the two aforementioned technologies is that it is a technology developed by the 3GPP organization and uses licensed GSM and LTE frequency bands, which means that NB-IoT must be licensed by the telecom industry. Users can only use NB-IoT-related services by obtaining authorized technology and frequency bands through telecom operators or third-party agents.
The advantage of NB-IoT is that it is a technology launched by existing telecom operators and does not require a new network to be built, and can use existing 4G telecom base stations and related equipment by updating the software.
On the other hand, the use of a carrier-grade network provides a high level of assurance in terms of communication quality and message security.
The application of wireless communication technology is to put the right technology in the right place.
There are thousands of IoT application fields, and the characteristics of these three technologies correspond to the special needs of different fields.
For example, NB-IoT, user license band, and LTE technology, its network does not limit the number of transmission messages and the amount of data it can carry is higher, so it is suitable for intelligent industrial fields that value network transmission stability and real-time, or IoT devices that require high data transmissions such as sound and image files.
The power consumption of NB-IoT is also higher than the other two technologies, and the loss of battery life is greater. Meanwhile, the collaboration model with telecom operators will be faster and easier to promote to users, and from another perspective, it is also limited by hardware cost (chip) and monthly rental cost.
Compared with NB-IoT, LoRa Sigfox is more suitable for small data volume and wide-range transmission applications due to its lower hardware cost and lower power consumption.
LoRa technology is now mature in the scale of development and has worked with APT and Hon Hai Fuhong Network, and has actual operational results in Taiwan. Although the transmission distance is not as long as Sigfox, the transmission bandwidth is higher, and the construction cost and technical difficulty are not high.
Germany said that Sigfox is a very developmental technology. Since Sigfox provides global network domain services, it is more convenient for multinational companies, especially the all-in-one network solution, which provides complete and stable cloud-based services for high-yield companies and saves many developments and collaboration troubles.
Sigfox has the longest transmission distance but the least number of transmissions in a day, making it suitable for applications where data is transmitted in response to changes in data or at fixed times, such as pipeline monitoring, smart meters, regional climate monitoring, and alerts.
Sigfox is currently working with O-bike for location tracking services, as well as device status detection, and smart medical remote care applications.
Since it is a multinational application, Sigfox also cooperates with US courier companies to install sensors on parcels, which not only know the delivery location of the parcels but also detect the time of unpacking and transmit the specific data back to the US.
IoT future vision: information security and technology verification are indispensable
Emerging technologies bring more convenience and a better vision of the future, but also bring about security concerns, when all kinds of information in the network circulation, once the network security problems, will probably lead to personal privacy leaks, and even affect personal safety.
In Europe, which attaches great importance to privacy, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been adopted, which strictly regulates the restrictions and management of personal data collection by online companies.
With the expansion of IoT devices and fields, general users will also be more frequently exposed to related issues, and network security will definitely become one of the service solutions that product/software providers need to propose.
All wireless communication technologies must go through national regulations and alliance certification standards. First, they must first pass national regulations on wireless communication frequency and power control, so that the products have qualified communication standards and will not affect other electronic devices or human health due to enhanced communication.
Must also pass the standards of each technology alliance, including electromagnetic wave type, communication protocols, and interconnectivity testing to ensure that products using the same type of communication technology can communicate with each other. Like the smart home gateway currently on the market, most will accommodate 1 to 3 kinds of communication technology (such as WI-FI, Bluetooth, ZigBee, etc.), the interconnectivity and anti-interference of the product are more important.
Perhaps in the near future, different wireless network communication technologies such as LoRa or NB-IoT will be integrated into a single IoT module, such as in remote factories, LoRa is used to form data transmission between devices in the local network, and then the data is transmitted to the external LTE network to integrate data from multiple plants for overall analysis.
No matter in the field of transportation, industry, agriculture, construction, medicine, finance, etc., what IoT will focus on will be the emerging applications under the data, device networking is only the foundation, only good use of software services, mastering application business opportunities, in order to specifically realize the real wisdom of IoT.
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