Choices Abound for Long-Range Wireless IoT (.PDF Download)

Wireless sensors are often synonymous with Internet of Things (IoT) devices. These can include high-speed solutions like Wi-Fi or mesh technologies like ZigBee. Unfortunately, when it comes to wireless technology, designers normally need to pick two out of three characteristics: low power, long distance, or high speed. Low power in this case would be a device that can operate continuously for more than 10 years and over a distance on the order of kilometers. Low cost is also a desirable characteristic.

There are a number of ways to address low-power, long-range IoT, but the three main competitors at this point are Sigfox, LoRaWAN Alliance LoRaWAN, and 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) NB-IoT (narrow band IoT). Each has a different set of attributes that designers may prefer, but usually a solution will utilize one or the other.