Outdoor calibration time for Carbosense

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Since mid of April Empa, Laboratory for Air Pollution / Environmental Technology, operates our LoRaWAN CO2 sensors next to their Nabel reference site to conduct outdoor calibration. The devices transmit readings over Swisscom LPN, based on LoRaWAN technology. In the next months we will roll out more than 300 CO2 sensors over whole Switzerland. Read more about our project Carbosense

Decentlab's devices at MWC17 @ LoRa Alliance

See our LoRaWAN sensor devices at the booths of OrbiwiseActility and LoRa Alliance during Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona. Thanks to all the partners which exhibit them.

Real time level monitoring demo with our new partner OrbiWise

Check out our new demo together with OrbiWise. OrbiWise provides a full network software solution for LoRaWAN-based networks. Our sensors and application server fits perfectly in combination with the network server from our partner. The demo shows a piezoresistive pressure and temperature sensor for level metering applications like water supply, waste water, ground water or surface water.

Decentlab's LoRaWAN sensors at Swisscom LPN Experience store

Visit LPN Experience store from Swisscom in Zurich at Stauffacher to see our sensors with LoRaWAN communication for level metering (liquids and solids), plant growth, soil moisture, meteorology and air quality (CO2).

Carbosense and our CO2 sensor with LoRaWAN on swiss television news SRF Tagesschau

On February 6th 2017 swiss television news SRF Tagesschau reported about our project Carbosense and presented our newest LoRaWAN sensor for CO2.  

Carbosense is a project initiated by EmpaSwisscom, Decentlab and SDSC. It proposes a worldwide unique, dense CO2 low power sensor network combined with atmospheric transport models. 

See our LoRaWAN sensors live at E-World in Essen

IVU Softwareentwicklung GmbH, our LoRaWAN network partner in Germany, will present our devices and web services at E-World Essen from 6th to 9th February. Visit them at their booth.

The focus of E-world energy & water is innovative solutions for the energy supply of the future - from generation, through distribution and storage to retail, efficiency and green technologies.In the area of storage, decentralised facilities and energy services, the trade fair is growing constantly.Numerous exhibitors present themselves at Germany’s largest Smart Energy trade fair with its focus on renewable energy and intelligent technologies.

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We are sponsoring Make Zurich

We are sponsoring Make Zurich 2017

Make Zurich is the civic tech and LoRaWAN hackathon for a better city. It will take place from February 3-4.

It will bring together the local hacker/maker community and the city administration to explore new ways of solving the problems of cities with the help of open networks and civic tech.

There will be six real needs of different departments of the City of Zurich that could be solved with LoRaWAN and civic tech.

Waste water level monitoring

Since mid May Eawag, Department Urban Water Management, is testing our ultra sonic level sensor nodes to monitor waste water reservoirs within  their field site Urban Water Observatory. A spatially distributed monitoring of the urban water cycle will be implemented during the next five years.

The nodes communicate using novel LoRaWAN technology. LoRa communication is an excellent candidate to realize such distributed monitoring applications. With its long range capabilities and low power characteristics it is ideal for the current monitoring setup.

Sensor data from our nodes are sent from below ground, inside sewer manholes and retention tanks to a LoRa gateway located on a roof of a public building. Gateway and network server infrastructure is operated by Loriot.io.

Visualization of sensor data, data export and data access run on our cloud infrastructure. We are looking forward to see first results from the field tests in the near future.

Very Long Range communication with Swissom LPN

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

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

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

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

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).

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?

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