The LoRa Alliance, the global association of companies backing the open LoRaWAN standard for the Internet of Things (IoT) low-power wide-area networks (LPWANs), showcased how LoRaWAN has become the market leader driving industrial evolution to Industry 5.0 globally. Industry 5.0 builds on Industry 4.0 by incorporating the human element, guided largely by environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives that seek to strengthen sustainability, efficiency, and quality of life for the world’s citizens. The LoRa Alliance ecosystem delivers end-to-end solutions across the value chain, which enable holistic digital transformation––encompassing technology, data, new workflows, and operational realignments––needed to achieve industry 5.0’s objectives.
“Over the past few years, the LoRa Alliance has demonstrated how LoRaWAN supports people, the planet, and profit. These concepts are fundamental to the ideas of Industry 5.0, which aims beyond efficiency and productivity as the sole goals and reinforces the role and the contribution of industry to society with more human-machine collaboration and human-centric solutions,” said Donna Moore, CEO and chairwoman of the LoRa Alliance. “Globally, businesses are recognizing that achieving business goals takes more than operational improvements, people and technology must work together to bring about change. LoRaWAN has taken a leadership position in this arena with millions of deployments that ultimately focus on increasing sustainability and improving quality of life. The evolution to Industry 5.0 is not possible without the use of open standards, backed by a strong ecosystem that offers a choice of vendors and endless innovation. This is also why so many organizations worldwide are adopting the LoRaWAN standard to drive their holistic digitization initiatives.”
Some of the trends driving Industry 5.0 include:
- The growth of governmental regulations for monitoring to ensure safety, such as New York City’s requirements to monitor for gas leaks. Using LoRaWAN for real-time monitoring has accelerated shut-off times by 6X, according to LoRa Alliance members Senet and ProSentry, saving lives and property.
- A rapid increase in P&C insurance premiums, reported to be more than 300% since 2017. Water damage claims are the single largest category of losses contributing to rate increases, accounting for $300B in global water claims annually. This is leading insurers to transition to a prevention mindset, encouraging building owners and operators to adopt leak detection technology. LoRa Alliance member Kairos reports that its LoRaWAN flexible leak detection sensors have eliminated water claims for more than 8,000 apartment units since installation and achieved a 6-month ROI on average for asset owners following system installation.
- The need for residents’ privacy is also driving LoRaWAN adoption in residential buildings, as it allows for facility monitoring and optimization without capturing or transmitting any personally identifiable information.
“Beecham Research is constantly conducting surveys and one-on-one interviews with IoT users and suppliers,” said Robin Duke-Woolley, CEO and Chief Analyst, of Beecham Research. “These are consistently showing LoRaWAN as the rapidly rising star for LPWAN sensor deployments in the smart cities, buildings, and utility sectors and also gaining ground rapidly in manufacturing, agriculture, and other high-priority sectors. The value that LoRaWAN brings as an open standard makes it inherently agile and encourages innovation across industries.”
“LoRaWAN’s strengths—open standard, strong security, low power, battery-operated, long-distance transmission, low capital, and operating expense—make it the leading LPWAN for IoT and the natural choice for Industry 5.0,” added Moore, “Massive LoRaWAN deployments pave the way to meeting ESG goals and adoption of Industry 5.0.”
Recent industry developments and large-scale deployments include:
- Sigfox owner Unabiz to utilize global LoRaWAN networks via partnerships with LoRa Alliance members Actility, LORIOT, The Things Industries, and Senet
- Nova Labs collaborations with multiple members to integrate Helium Network as a roaming solution and expand global LoRaWAN connectivity for all network operators, including announcements with Actility and Senet
LoRaWAN industry leaders, including:
- Everynet LoRaWAN connectivity is now available through AWS IoT Core for LoRaWAN, giving Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers the ability to connect devices seamlessly to the cloud, at scale and without the cost of deploying and managing their own network infrastructure
- Microsoft’s Azure IoT Edge LoRaWAN Starter Kit for connectivity to Azure IoT Hub
- Netmore announced plans to implement large-scale LoRaWAN networks in France, Spain, Poland, and the Netherlands, and has joined the LoRa Alliance board of directors
- MultiTech has partnered with a major automotive company to implement LoRaWAN on the manufacturing floor for predictive maintenance on a fleet of Autonomous Guided Vehicles
- Minol ZENNER Connect is experiencing strong growth in countries implementing the EU Energy Efficiency Directive, which requires, among other things, that utilities and real estate companies transmit consumption data to consumers and tenants throughout the year so they can monitor and adjust their consumption patterns. Currently, they operate more than 70,000 gateways with over 4,800,000 sensors in 5,800 cities in 12 countries and getting more day by day.
- Senet and Telli Health have launched the first remote patient monitoring (RPM) hardware powered by LoRaWAN, allowing providers to reach more patients in remote and underserved areas – such as indigenous communities worldwide – boosting healthcare equity and inclusivity
Recent LoRaWAN deployments that specifically support sustainability:
- 140,000 Abeeway trackers on factory workers in an industrial city in the region of Jharkhand, India (partnership with one of the largest conglomerates in India)
- The Things Industries and Connexin have collaborated to create a hybrid network model in Severn Trent, UK, to connect 150,000 LoRaWAN Itron water meters for real-time water usage data and just-in-time water leak detection.
- Milesight is providing Quebec’s schools with air quality monitoring, with nearly 50,000 sensors transmitting to 2600 gateways, transmitting more than 7 million messages daily over LoRaWAN
- 360,000 smart water meters deployed by Netmore in Yorkshire, UK
- 23,000 PipeBurst Pro WT500 wireless water sensors deployed in the US by Greenfield Direct
Moore continued: “The value that the world’s largest brands bring to our organization is second to none. I’m proud to include Minol ZENNER Connect and Netmore Group on that list and welcome Zenner USA’s president, Rich Sanders, and Netmore’s CEO, Ove Anebygd to the LoRa Alliance Board of Directors. I look forward to their strategic leadership on the Board of Directors and their companies’ support in driving the alliance and LoRaWAN technology forward.”
“It is an immense opportunity and honor for Zenner to be seated on the board of directors of the LoRa Alliance,” said Rich Sanders, president of Zenner USA. “The open LoRaWAN standard will force industries away from proprietary standards, which make products more expensive and cumbersome to work with for customers who want to automate. Providing an open standard also pushes competition within any industry to be more competitive and customer-focused. Across all our businesses, LoRaWAN has been a major part of our ability to provide advanced, low-cost, leading-edge solutions to our customers. As a company, we are committed to the success of the LoRa Alliance and as a board member we are engaged in helping achieve that success.”
"We are honored and grateful for the opportunity to join the Board of Directors for the LoRa Alliance, an organization that has been instrumental in advancing the adoption of LoRaWAN technology worldwide,” said Anebygd, CEO of Netmore Group. “As a pan-European LoRaWAN operator with strong commercial momentum, we are convinced that our position and our ambitions harmonize with the vision of the LoRa Alliance. A lot of important work has been done, while at the same time, we believe that we can contribute to the technology being established around Europe to an even greater extent. We are committed to leveraging our expertise, experience, and resources to help drive the proliferation of IoT solutions that benefit the LoRaWAN ecosystem and communities across Europe.”
“We have reached a moment in time where businesses have to change, there is no longer a choice of digitizing or not,” concluded Moore. “The evolution to Industry 5.0 is being driven by the tremendous headwinds the world is facing, including the global pandemic, supply chain issues, worker shortages, decaying infrastructure, financial crisis, and more. This new industrial evolution that accounts for people, the planet, and profit is only possible with the holistic digital transformation that looks at the bigger picture and finds ways to optimize business operations and the environment to achieve a sustainable future where the world’s citizens can thrive.”
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