Very Long Range communication with Swissom LPN

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Yesterday a new LoRaWAN gateway was brought online by Swisscom LPN near Aarau (Wasserflue). Our node located in Fehraltorf recording precipitation successfully transmits its data over this gateway located more than 56km away!
The node is part of the research project Urban Water Observatory from Eawag, Department Urban Water Management in which the urban water cycle is monitored with spatially distributed sensors to answer pressing questions regarding future developments of water infrastructure.

The node further sends data over LoRaWAN gateway located on top of Bachtel since last Friday. Already before data has been received from the gateways on Zürichberg and Uetliberg.

It is great to see how Swisscom LPN network grows and data reliability and coverage increases.

See our realtime demo for Swisscom and other LoRaWAN network provider.

The Things Network coverage in region of Lake Murten

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End of July Thomas Amberg (@tamberg) and Decentlab did some LoRa (The Things Network) range tests in the region of Murten for TTN-Bern. See coverage map below including some measurements recorded crossing the lake by Thomas.

Coverage map created with coverage-mapper and LoRaWAN Demonstrator

Interactive map

Soil moisture & temperature monitoring using LoRa infrastructure of TheThingsNetwork in region of Lake Murten

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Since end of July we monitor soil moisture and temperature in region of Lake Murten with our GS3 sensor.

Soil moisture & temperature monitoring using LoRa infrastructure of TheThingsNetwork Zurich

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We started a soil monitoring demo for evaluating TheThingsNetwork (LoRa infrastructure) and our rugged GS3 soil moisture & temperature node.

We deployed 3 nodes in different locations in Zurich. Sensor data is transmitted over LoRa to the gateways which are up to 7.5km away from the sensor location.

Thanks to the TheThingsNetwork Zurich for the infrastructure.

Decentlab LoRa sensors now with adaptive data rate (ADR) enabled by default

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This strongly improves data transfer times and optimizes the usage of the limited bandwidth in the 868MHz ISM band in which the LoRaWAN gateways operate.

Our nodes periodically adapt spreading factor by instructions sent from the LoRaWAN network server. With this we help the operators to run as much as possible nodes in parallel and let them coordinate the nodes for optimal data rate and range. The nodes significantly benefit by the lower power consumption in higher data rate modes.

With SF7 transmit time is 20 times shorter than with SF12!

Live demo using Swisscom LPN network:

Gateway for TTN-CH on rooftop of Decentlab HQ now covers large area over Glatttal region

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We moved our The Things Network gateway (FFFEB827EB686374) for TTN-CH from top floor office (inhouse) to the rooftop of our building. By this change coverage in Glatttal is significantly increased. See below picture of our gateway antenna and a map showing some coverage data. Change of RSSI between indoor and outdoor with new antenna ~16dB.

With this change Wallisellen, Schwamendingen, Opfikon, Brütisellen, Wangen, Dietlikon and Dübendorf have basic coverage with The Things Network.

Interactive map on gist.github.com

Rain Event recorded with our LoRa Water Level Sensor at Chriesbach, Dübendorf

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Over the last 24 hours Zurich area had permanent rain fall. We recorded this event with a level sensor over river Chriesbach in Dübendorf. We installed our ultrasonic level sensor using LoRaWAN communication several months ago at this location.

Realtime data

Decentlab's LoRa nodes transmit data to Swisscom gateway which is located 11km away (NLOS).

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Since mid of March Decentlab's LoRa nodes send data over LPN network from Swisscom. Current tests show very reliable data delivery from our nodes via Swisscom to our applications server.

Our test nodes located in Dübendorf transmit data to the gateway located on Zürichberg and from time to time even to the gateway located on top of Üetliberg (Distance: 11km, not direct line of sight)!

Realtime demos on lora.decentlab.com over Swisscom LPN

lorawan-range-detector (Water level monitoring over LoRaWAN network)

LoRa 1 channel node supports nearly all sensors found on our products list.

When do trees grow?

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Radial stem growth of trees is limited to a relatively short time period of the year in spring and summer. The timing of the growth period depends on site and species and is mainly explained by the local temperature conditions. Norway spruce trees at the subalpine site Davos start their radial stem growth about one and a half months later than the pine trees in the Valais. The length of the growth period, however, is similar.

© TreeNet 2016, authored by Roman Zweifel

Find out more

TreeNet - The biological drought and growth indicator network

TreeNet is equipped with wireless nodes from Decentlab on more than 20 sites to record the stem radius changes every 10 minutes on more than 300 trees, soil water potentials and micro climate parameters.
 

When do trees grow (1)?
When do trees grow (2)?
When do trees grow (3)?

Realtime data of all sites



Decentlab attends Swiss Conference on air pollutants and their modeling

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We had the pleasure to attend the "Luftschadstoffe und ihre Modellierung" event at Empa on the 20th January.

During the day, Christoph Hüglin from Empa, presented "Statistische Modellierung und der Nutzen von dichten Sensor-Messnetzen in Städten", which included our joint work on developing an low-cost air quality station.