From sports bracelets to shared bicycles, the continuous increase in IoT applications has brought drastic changes to our lives. With sports bracelets, we can monitor our health status in real time. With shared bicycles, we can travel freely. Authoritative organizations predict that by 2020, the number of IoT devices will reach 50 billion, and new applications will appear. Faced with such a huge target market, although software, security, cloud computing, user interfaces, etc. are mature, the hardware performance of the physical layer has shown a bottleneck when the IoT nodes move towards a scale of 50 billion. Only by using a wide range of technology can the number of battery-powered wireless nodes reach the expected scale. The emergence of LoRa technology breaks this bottleneck, and its use of spread spectrum modulation technology greatly improves the performance of physical layer hardware.
LoRa technology was launched by Semtech. Huang Xudong, vice president of wireless and sensor product market and application, introduced, "For 3G and 5G communications, many companies have participated in the formulation of standards, so they have added a lot of IP, resulting in the complexity of protocols, and the Internet of Things does not require such complex protocols, so we chose to do low-speed applications. LoRa technology has the advantages of long-distance, low power consumption, interoperability, low cost, security, large capacity and positionability. From the current situation, we have chosen to do low-speed applications. According to the application trend, LoRaWAN is deployed in more than 60 countries and regions around the world. The LoRa Alliance, founded in 2015, has more than 500 members. "
In terms of application, LoRa technology is making frequent efforts. Ofo is equipping LoRa devices and radio frequency technology (LoRa technology) into its bicycles to supplement its authorized spectrum connection options to achieve complete network connection; Advantech Technology also uses Wzzard with integrated LoRa technology LRPv nodes and SmartSwarm 243 gateways to expand wireless product lines; cloud service provider Netvox successfully introduced LoRa technology into its 8 popular smart building sensors in less than 6 months. In the future, LoRa is expected to play an important role in the four major application markets of smart agriculture, smart logistics, smart cities and smart buildings. Huang Xudong said, "The current smart meter market application market is the largest. Logistics applications will become the main force in the next two or three years. Smart cities, smart agriculture and smart buildings rank among the top three. The industry also predicts that LoRa chip shipments will be in the order of tens of millions in 2017, and the demand in the future will explode. "
Where there is market demand, there is competition. In addition to LoRa technology, NB-IoT (narrowband Internet of Things) technology is also positioned in the field of IoT applications, so competition is inevitable. We don't want to compare the two technologies first:
LoRa resources are free, and the cost is lower.
Internet of Things applications need to consider many factors, such as node cost, network cost, and LoRa and NB-IoT choose different frequency bands. NB-IoT uses authorized frequency bands and has three deployment methods: independent deployment, protection belt deployment, and internal deployment. The mainstream frequency bands around the world are 800MHz and 900MHz. China Telecom will deploy NB-IoT in the 800MHz band, while China Unicom will choose 900MHz, and China Mobile may rebuild the existing 900MHz band. LoRa is mainly operated in the global free frequency band, including 433, 868, and 915 MHz. Huang Xudong explained, "Since LoRa works in the authorization-free frequency band, network construction can be carried out without application, the network architecture is simple and the operating cost is low." In terms of hardware cost of
, the overall cost of LoRaWAN modules is around US$8-10, which is about half of the price of cellular LTE modules such as NB-IoT. The more complex the NB-IoT network is, the higher the cost of intellectual property-related (licensing frequency bands), and relatively speaking, the cost of LoRa is lower.
deployment methods are different, each has its pros and cons. Another difference between
LoRa and NB-IoT is that LoRa needs to set up a separate gateway, while NB-IoT directly connects to GSM or LTE network base station . If operators want to enter the Internet of Things field, NB-IoT is the first choice, and LoRa is hard to match. However, this is undoubtedly a layer of obstacle for NB-IoT. NB-IoT relies highly on the operator's infrastructure, and NB-IoT cannot be laid if the network is not built properly. In contrast, LoRa can set up networks on its own in any industry, without being subject to basic network facilities. In remote areas without base stations, IoT devices can still be run online, while NB-IoT is difficult to set up networks.Moreover, NB-IoT upgrade to advanced 4G/LTE base stations is more expensive than LoRa deploying through industrial gateways or overhead gateways.
For LoRa, the networking by itself increases the flexibility of construction, but it will increase gateway hardware than NB-IoT. If the number of gateways is huge in the future, hardware management will be difficult. Fortunately, LoRa technology has developed earlier and the industrial chain is relatively mature. Regarding whether LoRa will directly connect to the base station, Huang Xudong said, "LoRa can adopt the model of building a small base station first and then connecting to a large base station, but it can also be directly connected to a large base station."
In terms of underlying hardware provision, due to the large number of NB-IoT's participation in the provision of NB-IoT, the chip suppliers are indispensable to Intel, Qualcomm , Huawei , ZTE Micro, Nordic, Meiman, MTK, RDA and other companies. LoRa technology is only the patent of Semtch. Relatively speaking, the provider lineup is not so prosperous. In order to adapt to market development and demand, Semtech grants more companies to manufacture LoRa chips through IP authorization, such as ST, Hoperf, Microchip, GemtekT, etc.
LoRa and NB-IoT may achieve complementary
Since LoRa and NB-IoT each have their own pros and cons, there is another voice that in the future, IoT deployment will present a situation of complementary coverage of LoRa and NB-IoT. Compared with LoRa and NB-IoT, they consume less power and cost less, which can meet the application needs of fragmented IoT. NB-IoT bandwidth is larger and more suitable for large network coverage, but it can only be deployed in scenarios with long-term power supply, and LoRa does not need it. This also means that in the future, NB-IoT will increase network coverage, while LoRa will provide low-power coverage on NB-IoT to meet the needs of various application scenarios. This means that in the future, most IoT applications will occur on LoRa and transmit data through NB-IoT.
