Tag Archives: LoRaWAN

Milesight People Counting solutions

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For one of my clients, I had the opportunity to test several different people-counting solutions. Our requirement was for a system capable of communicating independently from the company network, such as through LoRaWAN, while also being available for purchase in single units. I turned to Milesight products, as the company offers a fairly broad range of sensors in this field. From a mechanical and hardware perspective, the sensors are generally of good quality. However, as we have seen, their performance in counting people varies greatly depending on the detection method used.

The entry-level sensors are very affordable, but the more advanced models—those based on image analysis with AI—quickly become much more expensive. Depending on the use case, each type of sensor addresses different needs, making it important to balance precision requirements against budget constraints.

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The Things Conference 2025: A Decade of Growth and a Shift Toward Diversity in IoT

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TheThingsConference took place once again in Amsterdam, marking what should have been its 8th edition. This year, however, the event carried a special significance: it celebrated the 10-year anniversary of TheThingsNetwork, now a yearly reference point for IoT professionals.

Traditionally, the conference has been strongly oriented toward the LoRaWan ecosystem, providing a deep dive into the technical and industrial advances surrounding it. But this year marked a shift. The organizers deliberately chose to broaden the scope, opening the stage to a wider range of IoT technologies and ecosystems. The result was an edition that felt more diverse, more dynamic, and undeniably more engaging.

With a larger audience and a wider array of perspectives, this year’s sessions offered a rich mix of technical depth and ecosystem insights. For me, the event was not only about the talks themselves, but also about taking a step back to reflect on the IoT market as a whole: how it has evolved over the past year, where it seems to be heading, and what genuinely new ideas and technologies are emerging.

As usual, this article is my way of revisiting those two intense days—sharing my key takeaways, my impressions of the conference, and my thoughts on the shifting landscape of IoT.

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EchoStar IoT – the geostationary LoRaWan solution for Europe

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In previous blog posts, I introduced you to satellite-based IoT through technologies like Kinéis and Astrocast. Both of these solutions rely on constellations of satellites, typically in polar rotation around earth and low Earth orbits (LEO), which allow for global coverage—but at the cost of latency due to satellite revisit times.

This time, I want to highlight a different approach to satellite IoT: a solution called EchoStar IoT, which I had the opportunity to explore hands-on by developing a compatible device.

What sets EchoStar apart is its use of geostationary satellite technology. This means the satellite remains fixed relative to a specific area on Earth, continuously covering the same geographical zone. As a result, there is no satellite pass delay—connectivity is constant within the coverage footprint.

However, this also implies a trade-off: a single geostationary satellite cannot provide global coverage. As of today, EchoStar IoT services are available across most of Europe, parts of North Africa, and the entire Mediterranean region.

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Abeeway 1WL devkit with Murata LBEU5ZZ1WL all in one tracking module

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The Abeeway 1WL development kit is dedicated to geolocation through various means such as GPS, GPS sniffing, WiFi sniffing, radio triangulation, BLE sniffing…, using the different components of the Murata LBEU5ZZ1 SiP module and Actility’s ThingPark geolocation platform, which gives meaning to the raw listening data. Abeeway is a key player in fleet tracking solutions, providing both a business platform and hardware solutions for this purpose.

Through Actility/Abeeway, I was able to obtain an evaluation kit whose main goal is to simplify access to these multiple geolocation technologies for the rapid development of customized tracking solutions.

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TheThingsConference 2024

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On September 25th and 26th, the new edition of TheThingsConference was held, the must-attend event of the LoRaWAN ecosystem and, more broadly, LPWAN. Even though the event, which was very open, is naturally becoming increasingly focused on TheThingsIndustrie’s solution and thus LoRaWAN, it remains an opportunity for numerous discussions in many other areas.

The organization was, as always, perfect, with ample space for side events that provide great opportunities for networking.

There were few announcements this year beyond the arrival of TheThingsIndustrie’s “plug & play” gateway and the introduction of trackers in the form of solar-powered tags, which seem to confirm the trend of IoT in this form factor, following RAK Sodaq and many other ongoing projects.

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IoT slide deck 2024-09 Update

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Here is the update of my IoT slide collection, which now approaches 400 slides that you are free to reuse. In this new edition, you will find technical elements on Meshtastic, Mioty, DePin, LoRa updates throughout, and a few introductory slides on blockchains. However, on this point, my new deck, published a few days ago, is more relevant.

As usual, to go further, you can find video content on my Youtube channel, like my new MooC about Block Chain and my IoT MooC (long version) posted this year.

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The Hidden Side of LoRa

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While I was working on a blog post about Meshtastic (which will be online soon), I started questioning the time on air in a non-LoRaWAN context, where the online simulators I usually use did not work. This led me to investigate the LoRa frame format (not LoRaWAN, just LoRa, the underlying layer), and to confront the “sync word”, the functioning of a chirp… a whole range of concepts for which I expected to find abundant documentation. After all, in the LoRaWAN world, the open nature of the technology has been emphasized since its inception. However, after quite a bit of research, I still remain somewhat uncertain about the basic workings of LoRa, which at the very least calls for a blog post to compile the information I have found.

I invite those with a solid understanding of the subject to enrich this post with comments, and I will incorporate the key elements accordingly.

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Take aways from 2024 LPWAN days at Pau

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LPWAN Day is an annual conference for university research in the field of LPWAN. This year’s edition was held in Pau. The event provides an opportunity to review the state of research on technologies such as LoRaWAN, Mioty, Wirepas, and satellite experiments, fostering technical, detailed, and inspiring exchanges.

This year, about sixty participants attended, mainly from academia but also from industries like Semtech, Wirepas, Schneider, and Kineis. As in every edition, we had many very in-depth and passionate discussions. The organization was flawless, and the hospitality in Pau was exceptional. However, I must admit that our visits to Glacier Giorgios may have skewed our perceptions.

In summary, it was two wonderful days, with beautiful weather and exceptional people. Here are my key takeaways.

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