IoT Devices and Applications Based on LoRa/LoRaWAN

Jitendra Rajendra Rana and S. A. Naveed

Department of Electrical Engineering, Jawaharlal Nehru Engineering College, MGM University, N‑6, CIDCO,

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Maharashtra, India

Keywords: IoT, LPWAN, LoRa, LoRaWAN, Wireless Sensor Network.

Abstract: The traditional Internet, which primarily provided services focused on people, has been completely

transformed by the Internet of Things (IoT). Through the Internet, it has made it possible for items to connect

and interact. Smart water management systems are one of the many uses for IoT. They do, however, need

very energy-efficient sensor nodes with long-range communication capabilities. To meet these needs,

numerous Low-Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) technologies, including LoRa, have been developed.

Therefore, to comprehend the current stream of devices being utilized, we study IoT devices and various

applications based on LoRa and LoRaWAN in this article. Contributing to the development of LoRa as a

workable communication technology for applications requiring long-range connectivity and scattered

deployment is the goal. We emphasized the output of every trial we evaluated as well as the device parameter

values.

1 INTRODUCTION

The Internet of Things (IoT) is projected to be the

next big sensation in the Internet. Its mission is to let

anything well, a thing interact over the Internet with,

well, you name it: vehicles, animals, plants, you get

the idea. IoT has been studied in different types of

research and after reshaping, some classifications

based on projects have been developed. For

illustration, the following smart applications have

been defined and are well identified: Smart Cities,

Smart Homes, Smart Transportation, Smart

Environment, Smart Grid, and Smart Water Systems.

In IoT, there is no one deployment model, but that’s

all dependent on the use cases. A solution deployed

in one part of the word using IoT so that it becomes

a solution for another part of the word. Thus, it is

estimated by researchers that more than 50 billion

things will be connected by 2020.

The essential element that unites all of the Internet

of Things' components to create a network is

communication. The advantages of wireless

communication (WC) include portability, reduced

cable usage, ease of adding additional devices to the

network, and the potential to enable any object to

connect to the internet. Furthermore, one of the best

technologies for IoT deployments is Wireless Sensor

Networks (WSN). Because it facilitates the

integration and linking of real items with cyberspace,

WSN positions itself as a crucial component of the

Internet of Things. Because of the advancements and

innovations occurring in WCs, it also lowers the cost

of IoT projects and deployments. WSN is made up of

wireless sensors with low power consumption that

can be used as long-term deployment infrastructure.

However, because of the limitations of sensor nodes,

including energy capacity, processing capabilities,

and communication bandwidth, WSN is linked to

numerous inherent difficulties. Security and network

management still need more focus.

Various scenarios call for distinct deployment

models with various network specifications. For

instance, a network deployment that can manage

mobility is necessary for smart transportation; a

network deployment that can manage long-distance

communications is necessary for smart cities;

naturally occurring disasters are necessary for smart

environments; and so on. Many WC technologies,

ranging from short range to long, medium range, have

been developed in recent years. LPWANs, or low

power wide area networks, will get better IoT

applications, both new and old, because of their long-

range communication and low power consumption.

Both licensed and unlicensed wireless bands are used

by LPWANs. The primary LPWAN attributes that

ought to direct the development of IoT networks are:

Rana, J. R. and Naveed, S. A.

IoT Devices and Applications Based on LoRa/LoRaWAN.

DOI: 10.5220/0013905400004919

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Research and Development in Information, Communication, and Computing Technologies (ICRDICCT‘25 2025) - Volume 3, pages

775-780

ISBN: 978-989-758-777-1

775

• Low-cost devices for inexpensive network

deployment;

• low power consumption;

• simple nationwide network infrastructure

deployment; and security

• Broader coverage

Today, LPWAN infrastructure is going through a

period of rapid growth. An all-purpose technology

has, however, its limit. As a result, LPWANs are

only employed to overcome certain IoT challenges.

They are particularly developed for delayed-tolerant,

low throughput, low power network, which needs

long reach network coverage at an affordable cost. A

perfect example use case for LPWAN is system or

condition monitoring. In this case, we think LPWANs

can be an excellent candidate for Water Distribution

Networks (WDN) where small amount of data is

collected to monitor different parts of the network.

To clarify whether LoRa devices are suitable for

monitoring in a distributed water network, this paper

investigates into LoRa devices in detail and their

performance under different scenarios.

The remainder of the document is structured as

follows: An overview of LoRa and LoRaWAN in

relation to Internet of Things devices and LoRa-based

applications is given in Section II. Comparisons are

presented in Section III, and the paper's discussion is

covered in Section IV. The paper is concluded in

Section V.

2 LoRa AND LoRaWAN

OVERVIEW

LoRa stands for long range, which has its roots in

low power wireless communication in the industrial,

scientific and medical radio band (ISM band) which

is based on unlicensed radio spectrum. LoRa aims to

achieve things including nothing but shrinking

medium range and regional coverage, minimizing the

number of costs and complexity, device battery shall

have a durability, to enhance the network capacity

and service capability is implemented. This distance

can be established by the physical layer. Low-power,

high modulation-index frequency shift keying (FSK)

is used in all wireless technologies. However, the

LoRa with a communication range has an issue of the

weak power-sensitiveness property due to Chirp-

spread-spectrum (CSS) modulation. Here is the

launch of CSS in commodity infrastructure. CSS can

fend off interference, however, so space agencies and

the military have used it for far-flung

communication.

LoRaWAN is the best answer to the problem of

long-distance networking for the Internet of Things,

emerged thanks to LoRa Alliance. Its LoRaWAN

based system architecture greatly addresses these

long range, low power at low dataspeed issues.

“Nonetheless, it is a primary cause impacting the

node battery life, network capacity, security, Quality

of Service (QOS) and the breadth of applications the

network can support.

3 LoRa AND LoRaWAN DEVICES

FOR APPLICATIONS

This section covers several LoRa deployment

devices, their configurations, and a summary of the

applications that employed them. The next section

compares the devices and applications that are

utilized.

3.1 LoRaSIM

Bor et al. analyzed some LoRaWAN protocol in

regard to scalability of a network consisting of LoRa

devices. Their smart city application uses a scalable

network for configuration. The behavior of the link

itself is analyzed with the NetBlocks XRange

SX1272 LoRa module. The first identified

limitations, through practical experiments, in the

device link behaviour comprising of: (i)

communication range independence from

communication configurations (e.g. bandwidth (BW)

and spreading factor (SF)); (ii) the capture effect of

LoRa transmissions, depending on the timings and

power of the transmissions. The goal of their study

was to assist them with the models that would allow

them to develop a LoRa simulator, which they called

LoRaSIM. The authors say that the simulator enables

the assessment of scalable LoRa networks and stores

the link's behavior. The smart city experiment was

performed using the LoRaSIM. In the normal

metropolis, 120 nodes should be electro-assembled

every 3.8 hectares, according to the findings. This is

made possible using the standard ALOHA protocol.

However, with dynamic multiple BS (gateways), the

network would scale very well.

3.2 Mobile LoRaWAN

Petäjäjärvi et al. used to analyze the coverage of a

LoRa network as the distance between the transmitter

(ED) and receiver (BS) increases. conducted a real-

world research experiment. The study attempts to find

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out the theoretical upper bound on communication-

range that the network configuration could reach

based on its deployment locality. Since LoRaWAN

parameters are location specific, their findings are

applicable to similar environments. By using the

maximum SF they increased the base station's

sensitivity. When a moving car stretches the distance

between the ED and Kerlink's BS (set at 24 m height

on top of the University of Oulu building), the ED

could be either LoRaMote (mounted in a mobile car

and boat) to measure the packets lost and exchanged.

Their experiment focused on the percentages of sent

and lost packets. European Union (EU) legislation

limited the frequency channels that could be utilized.

However, the nodes may choose from among the six

communication channels that were available. They

found that 80% of 5 km transmissions work, 60% are

between 5 km and 10 km, and the node connected to

the vehicle suffers decent loss above 10 km. In

experiments on the boat, 70% of packets were

successfully transmitted up to 15 km and a 30 km

communication range was achieved. The results

enabled them to develop an attenuation model to

approximate the density of base stations.

3.3 LoRaWAN Single Node

Throughput

To determine the maximum throughput that a single

node may achieve, the authors also carried out a

LoRaWAN experiment. They adjusted the SF from 7

to 12 and employed 6 channels with a frequency of

125 kHz. 100 packets with a maximum payload of 51

bytes were sent in each of the numerous tests that

were carried out. The findings demonstrated that, for

small packet sizes, the ED's inability to transmit

packets while the receiver windows are open is the

real constraint on throughput, not the channel duty

cycle. The authors concluded that the data rate used

determines the maximum frame size. Additionally, a

transmission should never send a payload larger than

36 bytes since LoRaWAN lacks a means to divide

large payloads over numerous frames. This is the

biggest payload that LoRaWAN can handle, and

sending a lot of data will cause capacity to be lost.

Additionally, they recommend that the upcoming

LoRaWAN specification revision include a

fragmentation mechanism.

3.4 LoRa Indoor Deployment

An indoor LoRaWAN experiment was carried out by

Neumann et al. to assess its functionality, identify its

drawbacks, and specify its application in 5G

networks. They demonstrated that the ISM band

control, which has an impact on the daily data

transmission volume, was the primary cause of the

restrictions. Furthermore, the ED data rate may also

be a factor of loss if it is not set correctly at the

beginning. To decode and log the sent LoRaWAN

frames to the database, they set up a single gateway

and a single basic server. The Raspberry Pi 2 and

IMST IC880A are connected over an SPI bus to form

the base station. The ED is composed of a Raspberry

Pi 2 interfaced with a LoRa mote RN2483 via a

UART interface, and the packet forwarder code

utilized is from Semtech.

3.5 LoRa Indoor Propagation

To assess indoor signal propagation capabilities for

long-range coverage of LoRa technology, Gregora et

al. carried out a study experiment. In two different

circumstances, the transmitter position was changed

while measurements were being taken, and the

receiver was positioned on the roof of a building and

in the basement. Their tools were specially designed

for the experiment. A USB serial converter was used

to connect the IMST iU880A, which was utilized as

an ED transmitter, to a PC. WiMOD LoRAWAN

EndNode Studio is used to control the node settings.

3.6 LoRa Fabian

FABIAN, a LoRa-based system installed in the city

of Renne, was designed and described by Petrić et al.

The network topology was a star topology based on

the ALOHA protocol. QoS was measured by

evaluations. The traffic between the nodes and base

stations was the focus of the investigation. They were

able to produce traffic that is comparable to what is

utilized in sensor monitoring applications.

Performance indicators like RSSI and packet error

rate (PER) associated with the LoRa physical layer

and signal noise ratio (SNR) were observed. An

Arduino and a FroggyFactory LoRa Shield running a

modified version of Contiki OS made up the nodes

that were utilized. The ED is set up with Kerlink as

the BS and the LoRaWAN protocol for

communication. They provided the results after

varying parameters that can impact QoS.

3.7 LoRa Wi-Fi

Kim et al. created a multi-interface module that

combines LoRa and Wi-Fi to provide high data

transfer, great range, and low battery consumption.

This was done in order to give LoRa technology the

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capacity to send large amounts of data and deliver a

variety of services using a range of sensors. The

Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and Waspmote and Semtech

SX-1272 chipsets made up the Elix board, which

offered Wi-Fi and LoRa functionality. Through the

Wi-Fi and LoRa modules, respectively, the Wi-Fi

handler and LoRa handler transmit data. To control

power utilization, the system is integrated with a

power and data scheduler that prioritizes sensed data

and decides between Wi-Fi and LoRa. Measurements

of RSSI and SNR from a communication range of 6

km to a maximum of 20 km were the focus of the

studies.

3.8 LoRaWAN Channel Access

As the most critical one for machine type

communication (MTC), Bankov et al. examined the

performance of LoRaWAN over channel access.

Their investigation also sought to evaluate the

shortcomings of LoRaWAN and propose a solution.

Simulation-based evaluation does not provide the full

potential of LoRaWAN. Their analytical approach

was thus grounded in a more pragmatic framework.

From channel access evaluations, it is known that

transmission collisions occur when two transmissions

sharing the same data rate temporal overlap. Motes

are connected to a gateway as a part of their network

configuration. It makes use of three primary uplink

channels, each 125 KHz wide, and one downlink

channel. The data rates devices are configured to use

are between 0 and 5, or an SF of 7 to 12. We have

every mote sending a 64-byte payload, of which 51

bytes are frame payload. They also studied PLR

(packet loss ratio) and PER (packet error rate) with

loads lower than 0.1 per second. There is some loss

of packets on the network, when the traffic increases

more packets will get lost due to collisions. One

packet can be sent each 20 minutes with 100 motes.

They are then proposed to be fixed with the

densification of LoRaWAN gateways.

3.9 PHY and Data Link Testbed

Based on modeling and field-testing, Augustin et al.

Some developed a testbed to evaluate performance

for the lower layers heavily. Their work deserves

attention as they conducted an extensive study on the

LoRa components. As with the authors, we placed

the gateway in an indoor environment and the end-

device node in an outdoor environment to determine

the coverage distances of the LoRa coverage region.

When they checked the packet delivery ratio, they

changed the distance and SF. Despite lower SF, they

found, they achieved higher coverages and packets

on the highest SF, which is 12. They inferred that the

delivery ratio of a LoRaWAN network could reach a

higher one.

3.10 LoRaWAN Nordic Cities

Ahlers et al. employed a LoRaWAN as part of their

extensive research to quantify urban greenhouse gas

emissions in Nordic cities. It is a low-cost automated

system to measure greenhouse gas emissions in the

city. Their approach also addresses the issue in

Norway where there is no system that provides gas

emission statistics and that makes the information

available to all its citizens via a municipality

platform. Two sensor technologies were used, namely

Sodaqs Autonomo (SA) and Libeliums Plug & Sense

Smart Environment Pro (PSSEP). LoRaWAN is the

communication method used to cover their minimal

gateways spread through the city. They added a solar

panel beside their node to recharge the power supply

and increase the batteries' life. Nodes were equipped

with different sensors to measure different

characteristics of gas. For six months they monitored

CO2 levels, keeping a stable level of battery power.

They found that this kind of network is feasible for

industrial sensing.

3.11 uPnP-WAN Temperature Monitor

In, Ramachandran etal proposed the uPnP-WAN

device in order to give embedded IoT devices plug-

and-play capabilities. The system has an ad hoc

suburban range of 3.5 km. The team first solved for

a system to track temperatures within blood

refrigerators in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In

practical applications, their battery-powered device is

plug-and-play and has a battery life of six years. The

antenna height geolocation affects the performance of

the range. For class A LoRaWAN, uPnP-WAN

utilises Microchip's RN2483 LoRa chip. The uPnP

Contiki OS with Erbium CoAP stack runs

onAtMega1284p microcontroller with a 10 MHz

MCU, 16 kB RAM and 128 kB flash. The uPnP and

RN2483 are connected in a UART fashion. Battery

life and range testing were carried out. The single-

hop LoRa deployment enabled the system to reach

3.5 km. Also, and this is less of a gut feeling, the

battery is currently projected to last 10 years

(contrast that with their old mesh uPnP-WAN

system). Sensor reads were transmitted to the

gateway every fifteen minutes through the uPnP-

WAN.

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3.12 Troughs Water Level Monitoring

System

With WSN, Tanumihardja and E. Gunawan

developed a system to monitor the water level in

troughs utilizing LoRa and LoRaWAN as its

physical layer and communication protocol. They

devised a way for cattlemen to monitor their trough

ubiquity (or ubiquitous troughs) by repurposing their

own gadgets. Raspberry Pi is used as the Gateway to

send the sensed data to the server. Since the system

is designed for cattlemen with very little, if any,

engineering background, it is assumed to do self-

configuration. The sensor used to read the water state

is the float switch GE-1307, and the deployed nodes

in the farm itself use ATMega low power

requirement meets for the remote. Since the nodes

were placed this low and the gateway was placed on

the top of a house that could be eight meters high, the

bandwidth in the study was calculated with the

distance between the gateway and node kept

variable. They conclude that horizontal polarization

of the antenna is suitable for this setup.

4 COMPARISON AND

DISCUSSION

Summarizes the parameters of different examined

device settings in terms of their various LoRa and

LoRaWAN applications it is worth noticing that the

studies made interestingly diverse standalone

deployments using full stack plug and sense devices,

and standard single board computers linked to LoRa

modules from separate providers that can be

performed diverging accordingly. But devices that

use LoRa operate differently based on geographical

limitations, which include the United States, Asia,

and the European Union. Moreover, some of these

are built specifically for regions. According to the

usage of the device, the LoRa device needs to be

reconfigured. As observed, where a large majority of

the scrutinized devices worked with the common 125

kHz wideband all supported SF 7-12 (dSF) in full-

duplex (dBi) mode, it is observed that static

bandwidth does not vary by its position on the

spectrum, which is one of the common features of a

bandwidth channel. They employed three different

BWs: 125 kHz by default, 250 kHz when between

DR3 and DR4, and 500 kHz for both upstream and

downstream purposes. DR4 upstream 64-71 eight

channels and DR10~DR13 downstream 0-7 eight

channels. Moreover, 14 dBm was used in 8 dBm (11-

12 SF transmit power for optimal performance).

Transmission power used of the transmission power

of is considered good since it enables the system to

lessen noise interference and enhance signal

propagation. This source power is mainly used in the

2.4 GHz ISM-band for relatively large channels. The

results show typical parameter values for all

applications. This could be further refined for LoRa

with additional experimentation with different

parameters, but this was out of the scope of this

research.

The foundation of LoRa devices is range. In one

of these investigations, the shortest range measured

was 50 cm. To minimize network congestion and

enable adjacent devices to transfer at a low TOA,

LoRa constantly prioritizes nearby nodes. As one of

the upcoming IoT technologies, LoRa technology is

now being researched primarily to verify its

capabilities and provide long-range communication

with minimal power consumption. Furthermore,

investigations conducted by the authors have shown

positive outcomes, reaching a 30-kilometer link

between the gateway and the ED.

According to the publications examined in this

work, many scenarios, including interior deployment

by and and outdoor deployment by and, have been

used to test the feasibility of LoRa technology.

Because they perform well with current networks and

technologies and fit into most network

configurations, LoRa devices offer flexibility. For

example, a system that combines Wi-Fi and LoRa

was intended to provide long range and maximum

throughput. The most noteworthy use was carried out

by Raza and Kulkarni, who created a battery-free

LoRa device that uses the vibrations of the bridge as

vehicles pass it to generate energy. Their ideas

demonstrate that, depending on the application type

and deployment area, LoRa technology offers

innovative opportunities.

5 CONCLUSIONS

The Internet of Things is all about devices that can

connect to each other over long distances and with

minimal energy use. This is where LPWAN was

born or created. Based on new developments, it is no

surprise that many cutting-edge advancements are

being done in regards with LPWAN networks and

technologies such as LoRa. In this study, we focused

on IoT devices and applications based on

LoRa/LoRaWAN, its current deployments and what

it can be used for. The results from the evaluation and

study are listed. We found that devices used in all

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applications are the same, and also that recent LoRa

work is comparable. In most deployments of LoRa

communication, single board PCs connected to LoRa

modules were used. Moreover, several applications

used radio station and modular plug-and-sense

devices, which are full-stack for deployment of LoRa,

but cost can sometimes be a limiting factor for large

deployment. In addition, the current deployments

can be categorized as simulations, testbeds, and real

implementations. However, most popular

applications are still related to monitoring. Also, to

increase the future use of LoRa, a cross-platform

LoRa-based monitoring and control device should be

developed.

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