Friend of mine is starting up a network based on a technology called LoRA WAN. Essentially, its a low-cost, very long range, low bandwidth network service for collecting data on devices and sensors. It uses part of the 900Mhz spectrum in North America and as such, has a very long range and good penetration inside buildings etc.
He was showing me a number of very interesting sensors that are available. Typically these things are battery powered and literally last for 5-10 years before the batteries need to be changed. You pick the application, and there will almost surely be a sensor for it -- soil moisture, mouse traps, garbage bins, vehicle location, OBD-II, motion detection, door alarms, accelerometers - the list is almost endless. The trick with these devices is that they provide very low speed data (they don't send photos or video, they send a handful of data characters). The sensors are usually inexpensive (sub-$100) and have a low-cost network fee (a few dollars per device). They differ substantially from WiFi devices in that they are much lower cost and have the ultra-long range and battery life. Downside is that the data they can send is limited to a few Kb at a time.
I was thinking there is a very cool application for the marine industry. Many of these sensors are hardened industrial devices and would lend themselves well to a boat. They can be installed independent of boat systems (meaning that you can simply put it in place without having to wire it to the boat power or network). I was suggesting it would be very interesting to be able to have a dashboard for the boat where you could monitor voltage, GPS data (including Geofencing), temperature (e.g, engine room), water levels (e.g. a bilge sensor) etc... There might be a market for remote vessel monitoring and an upside for insurance rates etc...
Anyone have any thoughts here?
He was showing me a number of very interesting sensors that are available. Typically these things are battery powered and literally last for 5-10 years before the batteries need to be changed. You pick the application, and there will almost surely be a sensor for it -- soil moisture, mouse traps, garbage bins, vehicle location, OBD-II, motion detection, door alarms, accelerometers - the list is almost endless. The trick with these devices is that they provide very low speed data (they don't send photos or video, they send a handful of data characters). The sensors are usually inexpensive (sub-$100) and have a low-cost network fee (a few dollars per device). They differ substantially from WiFi devices in that they are much lower cost and have the ultra-long range and battery life. Downside is that the data they can send is limited to a few Kb at a time.
I was thinking there is a very cool application for the marine industry. Many of these sensors are hardened industrial devices and would lend themselves well to a boat. They can be installed independent of boat systems (meaning that you can simply put it in place without having to wire it to the boat power or network). I was suggesting it would be very interesting to be able to have a dashboard for the boat where you could monitor voltage, GPS data (including Geofencing), temperature (e.g, engine room), water levels (e.g. a bilge sensor) etc... There might be a market for remote vessel monitoring and an upside for insurance rates etc...
Anyone have any thoughts here?
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