New specs from the LoRa Alliance are aimed at cutting manual work from low-power network onboarding and reducing coverage gaps in hard-to-reach locations.
The growth of AI across all sectors has led to an increased demand to connect even more things. That’s an area where LoRaWAN, the low-power networking protocol, is making significant inroads as all manner of industries are trying to bridge the gap between the physical world and the digital one.
LoRaWAN now connects more than 125 million devices worldwide and is increasingly adding deployments that might seem unexpected to the average person. LoRa Alliance CEO Alper Yegin pointed to livestock monitoring as one example, citing a member company running more than 1 million solar-powered, LoRaWAN-connected cattle collars.
The LoRa Alliance is now publishing two new specifications and one technical guidance document. Together they target a pair of persistent deployment problems: manual device onboarding and coverage gaps in hard-to-reach locations.
- TS014: An API that lets a network automatically pull a new device’s capability profile from a centralized server instead of requiring manual configuration.
- TS018: A QR code format, printed on the device or its packaging, that encodes the device ID and points the network to the correct profile server.
- TR016: Technical guidance for building and deploying LoRaWAN Relay, a battery-operated range extender for locations a gateway cannot economically reach.
The three updates share a common thread. “Whether it’s by easing the onboarding hassle or by extending coverage at super low cost, they’re all about scaling, and that’s where we are heading,” Yegin told Network World.
TS014 automates device profile discovery
Every device joining a LoRaWAN network needs to declare its capabilities. That includes attributes such as multicast support and which specification version it uses, bundled into what the alliance calls a device profile. Historically, suppliers shared that information over email or a downloadable file. Network operators then installed it manually.
TS014 replaces that manual step with an API. When a device is provisioned, the network queries a centralized repository directly instead of relying on a file someone typed in by hand.
The mechanism reflects a deliberate design choice in how LoRaWAN handles discovery. Wi-Fi and cellular networks negotiate device capabilities through an over-the-air handshake when a device joins. LoRaWAN avoids exchanging that information over the radio link at all.
Yegin emphasized that LoRaWAN prioritizes low power consumption. An on-air conversation for discovery like what Wi-Fi and cellular use would drain battery life and consume shared channel capacity.
“Instead, the whole discovery takes place between the network and some other server in the cloud on the backend side, not over the air, because any messaging over the air would drain the battery of the end device and also would keep the channels busy,” Yegin said.
TS018 gives the network a starting point
TS014 still requires the network to know where to find a given device’s profile. TS018 supplies that reference point.
The spec defines a QR code format, placed on the device or its packaging. It encodes the device’s unique ID along with the address of the server holding its capability profile.
Scanning that code gives the network what it needs to fetch the profile through TS014. An operator can scan devices one at a time or import codes in bulk during a large deployment. Either way, provisioning completes without a manual lookup step.
TR016 extends coverage into locations gateways cannot reach
A base station cannot always reach an end device directly, whether the sensor sits underground, inside a building’s inner shaft or at the bottom of a well. “These are extremely challenging RF places that you cannot directly reach from base stations down to the sensor,” Yegin said.
LoRaWAN Relay addresses that gap, providing a range extender capability. A relay node picks up the LoRaWAN frame from the end device and forwards it to the base station, using LoRaWAN on both the device-facing and network-facing side.
Relay itself is not new. TR016 adds technical guidance for the device makers and network operators building on it. That includes constraints on how many devices a single relay can support, a limit driven by keeping relay hardware cheap enough to run on batteries. It also includes recommendations for when a relay makes more sense than deploying an additional base station.
What comes next
The new specifications are one part of a larger effort to further expand LoRaWAN. Yegin said there are three primary dimensions:
- Industrial applications: The alliance has formed a joint working group with the OPC Foundation to standardize how OPC industrial applications run over LoRaWAN.
- Satellite connectivity: The alliance is developing network discovery enhancements for low Earth orbit satellite connectivity.
- Mobile base station discovery: Improvements to walk-by and drive-by reading would let end devices detect a passing mobile base station and transmit uplink data in a timelier manner.
“Our vision is to turn LoRaWAN into a utility, meaning it’ll be ubiquitously available and plug and play, and it’ll also become the default connectivity for everyday things,” Yegin said.
