New Tech Tuesdays: How Wi-Fi® HaLow™ Overcomes Industrial IoT Challenges
Key Highlights
- Wi-Fi HaLow operates in sub-1GHz bands, offering longer range and better penetration through obstacles compared to traditional Wi-Fi frequencies.
- Power-saving features and low-duty-cycle operation make Wi-Fi HaLow suitable for battery-powered IoT devices in remote or hard-to-access locations.
- The technology simplifies integration with existing Wi-Fi infrastructure using familiar TCP/IP protocols, easing deployment and management.
- Applications include smart buildings, utility meters, industrial monitoring, agricultural sensors, and campus-scale asset tracking.
- As device availability increases, Wi-Fi HaLow is poised to become a key component in the industrial IoT connectivity landscape.
New Tech Tuesdays
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Smart buildings, utility networks, agricultural sites, and campus-scale facilities rely on connected devices to monitor energy use, track equipment health, manage environmental conditions, and improve operational visibility. However, as these connected endpoints become more widely spaced, wireless connectivity becomes more challenging to design and deploy.
Conventional Wi-Fi® at 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz works well for high-throughput indoor applications, but signals in these bands can weaken when passing through walls or covering long distances. Cellular connectivity provides long-distance coverage but often comes with tradeoffs in power consumption, cost, and recurring service fees. Some proprietary low-power wireless networks offer broad coverage via mesh networks, but they may require gateways or translation layers, adding system complexity.
Wi-Fi HaLow™, based on IEEE 802.11ah, provides Wi-Fi connectivity in sub-1GHz frequency bands. The lower frequencies offer extended range with lower power consumption, providing a convenient solution for IoT devices that do not require high data throughput.
This week’s New Tech Tuesdays examines how Wi-Fi HaLow addresses the range, coverage, and power consumption challenges associated with industrial IoT (IIoT) connectivity.
Power Efficiency for Remote IIoT Devices
Power consumption is a key design consideration for industrial Internet of Things (IoT) devices deployed in areas where running power cables or replacing batteries is difficult. By operating in sub-1GHz bands, Wi-Fi HaLow can support longer-range links than conventional Wi-Fi bands. At the same time, IEEE 802.11ah power-saving features and low-duty-cycle operation can reduce average power consumption for suitable IoT devices. Trading bandwidth for power efficiency is a sound engineering decision for IoT devices that only need to transmit small amounts of data at a time.
Wi-Fi HaLow uses the same TCP/IP protocols as earlier Wi-Fi generations, simplifying provisioning, cloud integration, and enterprise network management, especially for organizations that already rely on Wi-Fi infrastructure.
Deploying Wi-Fi HaLow
As Wi-Fi HaLow devices and modules become more widely available, the technology may support a broader range of deployments across industrial, utility, agricultural, and smart-building environments.
Engineers still need to consider antenna design, regional spectrum regulations, interoperability, network planning, and the tradeoffs among data rate, range, and power consumption. As more devices and modules become available, Wi-Fi HaLow could become an important part of the IIoT connectivity toolbox.
The Newest Products for Your Newest Designs®
The Morse Micro MM8108 Wi-Fi HaLow system-on-chip (SoC), available to order from Mouser, is a connectivity solution that helps engineers integrate long-range, low-power wireless networking into IIoT designs.
The MM8108 SoC supports IEEE 802.11ah Wi-Fi HaLow connectivity, enabling sub-1GHz wireless links for applications that require broader coverage than conventional Wi-Fi typically provides. This makes the MM8108 a strong fit for applications such as smart-building sensors, utility meters, industrial condition-monitoring nodes, campus-scale asset tracking, agricultural monitors, and low-power camera links.
Tuesday’s Takeaway
While recent mainstream Wi-Fi generations emphasize faster speeds, wider bandwidths, and improved efficiency in 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz bands, Wi-Fi HaLow extends Wi-Fi into sub-1GHz operation for long-range IIoT connectivity. For applications that prioritize range, coverage, and power efficiency over throughput, Wi-Fi HaLow is becoming a compelling option where existing Wi-Fi infrastructure and ecosystems are already in use.
This blog was generated with assistance from Copilot for Microsoft 365.
