Live LoRa demo will show asset tracking around Nuremberg
Digimondo is Semtech’s partner in a joint announcement of a roll-out of the LoRaWAN IoT network in Germany; Digimondo was a start-up by [energy supplier] E.ON in Germany in June 2015 and is, according to a company executive, “The IoT company of E.ON”. E.ON’s primary interest is in metering, and says that Digimondo has the lowest-cost smart meter at present, with secure operation and robust EMI performance. Digimondo anticipates extending its scope to include gateway functions, and to meter water and gas as well as electricity; other services that will be added that include connected street lighting and air pollution monitoring.
However, the network to be demonstrated in Nuremberg will show alternative uses of the network; asset tracking of real-world targets. Digimondo has launched low power wide area networks (LPWAN) over Nuremburg, Hamburg and Berlin and expects to cover eight major German cities in 2016, as well as a number fo smaller towns. The partners will demonstrate the Nuremburg network performance during the tradeshow by wirelessly tracking public transportation vehicles across the city. The vehicles’ movement will be displayed on a monitor at the Semtech (2-631) and Microchip (1-510) booths.
Digimondo, formed to “help digitalise the German energy industry”, intends to launch an open LPWAN based on the LoRaWAN standardized specification that will enable innovative IoT applications, such as public transportation tracking, smart metering, air pollution measurement, boat tracking and more. The network infrastructure, which was tested in Hamburg and Berlin in 2015, has been approved for further deployments in Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf, Essen, Cologne, as well as rural areas where volumes are secured. The network is expected to be open to outside enterprises by mid-2016. A spokesman indicated that connection to the net will be free of charge to private individuals, with a charging structure for service providers.
Marcus Walena, CEO of Digimondo believes that LPWANs are the missing piece to enable IoT and digital smart city infrastructure in Germany. “It is Digimondo’s mission to provide Germany’s best and easiest to use LoRa LPWAN,” said Walena.
In addition to the demo, Microchip, a member of the LoRa Alliance, will be giving away LoRa-based development kits connected to the Digimondo network during the Embedded World exhibition so attendees can evaluate the network’s performance. Development kits will be available on a first-come, first-served basis to select clients at Microchip’s booth 1-510.
Both Digimondo’s network and Microchip’s development kit are equipped with Semtech LoRa RF technology, which was developed to enable LPWANs and IoT applications. LoRa technology claims unprecedented range, battery life, penetrability and connectivity, and it has been implemented in a wide range of LPWAN and application deployments worldwide. LoRa technology is being used for agriculture monitoring, public safety, building and infrastructure management, water conservation, and natural disaster tracking, Semtech says.
Asked if success could overwhelm the capacity of the network, a Semtech spokesman said that his is not a significant concern, “there are already overlapping LoRa [networks]”, adding that users who develop larger capacity needs are likely to migrate naturally to licensed (RF) bands.
Semtech; www.semtech.com / www.semtech.com/wireless-rf/lora
Digimondo; https://digimondo.de/
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