Evolution of Usage on the Helium IoT Network

In an article written in 2022, following an unwarranted and poorly executed attack that reduced the value of the Helium network to the nascent consumption of data, erroneously overvalued at $6600, I began monitoring the usage of the network over the months.

To give some context, Helium is a DAO governing the operation of several networks: LoRaWan (IoT), CBRS (4/5G), and WiFi. A DAO is a distributed organization using blockchain to govern its operational processes. This project is one of the pioneers of what we now call DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks), which bridge the virtual world of blockchain with the physical world around us and generally translate into service offerings consumable in the traditional economic circuit, competing with equivalent services in the traditional economy.

Helium is the largest deployed LoRaWan network in the world. It is used for roaming by numerous telecom operator networks and natively by many companies deploying fleets of connected objects. For my part, since 2021, I have been the first to provide commercial and open access to individuals and businesses to this network to connect their objects, through the service Helium IoT Console delivered by IngeniousThings. For this reason, I pay particular attention to monitoring usage on the IoT network.

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IoT Antenna matching with Atyune

Recurrent step when making an IoT device, the antenna matching is a key activity to get the right radio performance for your device. You radio strip and antenna must be tuned to match a 50 Ohm impedance. For doing this I’m using a miniVNA Tiny Vector Network Analyzer (until a switch to my Rigol Spectrum Analyzer) as described on the previously linked post.

The impact of a correct antenna matching has been addressed in an old post on this blog also.

Currently, to tune my antennas, I’m also using the Atyune tool. This tool is free and really good to make the tuning but also to get a better understanding of what you are doing. Let’s see how to proceed.

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Sigfox Radio Signal Analyzer

Sigfox just released publicly its Radio Signal Analyzer tool. This is a tool for the device & module maker to prepare the P1 certification : basically it checks the radio signal shape, power… and tell you if you are following the requirements.

The tool have to be used with the SIGFOX SDR dongle provided with the SNEK tool.

The software solution can be downloaded here : https://support.sigfox.com/downloads/sigfoxradiosignalanalyzer.iso

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Learn about Sigfox and LoRa radio technologies

This post is a VLOG entry, as usual in French, you will find the english text version in the next part of the post.

Basically, I’m explaining how the two LPWAN technologies : Sigfox and LoRa use the radio frequency to communicate with a low power consumption in a wide area environment.

In this video you will find a mix of demonstration with voice to highlight how it works with day-to-day life example and spectrum capture of both technology to visualize how it looks like.

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