Cross kilometers with little power and no hassle!

by Denis Meyer | 23 May, 2018

A Wide Area Network connects far remoted devices to the Internet through gateways. LoRa is such a subscription-free communication standard, supported by many companies. There is no overlap between LoRa and WiFi or Bluetooth. The latter have a very short range, LoRa a very narrow bandwidth. Since it is used mostly with sensors, the traffic can be slow and mainly unidirectional. LoRa also supports peer-to-peer communication.

LoRa is a communication standard using a low power wide area network. It wirelessly connects far remoted devices and gateways. Many companies support the LoRa standard but it remains subscription free. LoRa also supports ~~pear-to-pear~~ peer-to-peer communication.

Is LoRa another WiFi or Bluetooth?

There is no overlap between LoRa and WiFi or Bluetooth, they are complementary. Compared to WiFi and BT which have a very short range, LoRa has a very narrow bandwidth. Gateways or concentrators are used by connected devices aka edge nodes (mostly sensors) only 1% of the time. This dramatically reduces the bandwidth. The traffic is slow, mainly unidirectional, from the sensors to the gateway. However, this is how to cross kilometers with little power and no hassle!

To learn more also read our Review about how to get started in IoT with Dragino LoRa products and various news on related subjects: Dragino LoRa/GPS_HAT module together with a Raspberry Pi and P2P communication.