Semtech and Amazon team up to bring LoRa to consumer IoT

在智能家居领域，Semtech一直在帮助解决方案开发人员实现LoRa®器件的潜力，并在这一方面取得了显著的进展。Semtech在今年推出了LoRa Smart Home™收发器，使得开发人员更容易将基于LoRa的终端设备所提供的远距离、低功耗和低成本优势应用于消费性市场。

The application of LoRa in the field of smart home is booming. Recently, Semtech announced that it has established a partnership with Amazon to jointly develop applications for its Amazon Sidewalk network, which will strongly promote the application of LoRa devices in the smart home industry. Amazon first launched the Sidewalk network at the end of 2019, including the development plan of new Ring smart home devices and new geo-fence pet trackers. Utilizing the long-range characteristics of LoRa, Amazon's Sidewalk network will enable the connection of devices from home to garden to community, thus benefiting the entire community.

LoRa-based smart community

Semtech's LoRa devices have quickly become the platform of choice for industrial and enterprise IoT applications; however, their potential for consumer applications has only just begun to be explored. Most smart home devices on the market today rely on communication technologies such as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to connect devices to the Internet, but these short-range, high-bandwidth communication protocols have limitations in terms of coverage and excessive power consumption; on the other hand, cellular networks such as 5G are not suitable for low-power IoT devices because these devices only need to connect under low-cost, low-power and low-bandwidth conditions.

智能家居并不仅仅包括房屋之内的范围，而是在覆盖整个物业的基础上，延伸到院子、花园，扩展到整个建筑物、房屋周边甚至是移动资产。尽管应用各不相同，但客户对“开箱即用”的可靠连接的需求并不会随范围的变化而改变。如今，业主可以在其物业的所有区域中安装与物联网相连的传感器，但业主的体验通常会受到“盲区”的影响，即那些Wi-Fi路由器无法覆盖的地方，或者是其范围对于蓝牙等短距离通信平台太远。有了LoRa，即使设备在移动状态，也能够确保连接始终稳定可靠，并显著扩大了覆盖范围，从而使客户能够追踪家里的宠物或资产。

New opportunities for smart home devices

When the application range of smart home devices expands to the community, the long coverage distance characteristics of LoRa devices provide new possibilities for asset tracking and geolocation applications. By leveraging the Amazon Sidewalk network, many devices can extend their coverage to half a mile, while other communication technologies can only provide coverage of hundreds of feet. LoRa devices are also very suitable for many common smart home applications on the market today, such as smart lighting, door and window sensors, motion sensors, smart locks, smart irrigation, etc.

The low power consumption of LoRa devices offers a compelling alternative to battery-powered IoT devices that use Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. Frequently charging or replacing batteries in sensors can be inconvenient, especially when the sensors are placed in hard-to-reach areas. Worse, home security devices that drain power quickly can pose a risk because they may run out of power at the critical moment when they are needed. LoRa overcomes these shortcomings by using its extremely low power consumption to communicate, allowing devices to operate for years on just one battery or charge.

Opportunities for the LoRa Developer Ecosystem

The advantages of LoRa devices in the smart home are obvious, and with the launch of Amazon Sidewalk network, more consumers will soon experience LoRa in their daily lives. Before Amazon announces the official launch date of its Sidewalk network, Semtech will do its part to prepare developers in our vast ecosystem to take advantage of this upcoming opportunity. The Semtech team is committed to simplifying the development of LoRa-based solutions to help developers speed up the time to market, and has delivered on these promises through tools such as LoRa Basics™ and LoRa Cloud™ services.