EchoStar IoT – the geostationary LoRaWan solution for Europe

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In previous blog posts, I introduced you to satellite-based IoT through technologies like Kinéis and Astrocast. Both of these solutions rely on constellations of satellites, typically in polar rotation around earth and low Earth orbits (LEO), which allow for global coverage—but at the cost of latency due to satellite revisit times.

This time, I want to highlight a different approach to satellite IoT: a solution called EchoStar IoT, which I had the opportunity to explore hands-on by developing a compatible device.

What sets EchoStar apart is its use of geostationary satellite technology. This means the satellite remains fixed relative to a specific area on Earth, continuously covering the same geographical zone. As a result, there is no satellite pass delay—connectivity is constant within the coverage footprint.

However, this also implies a trade-off: a single geostationary satellite cannot provide global coverage. As of today, EchoStar IoT services are available across most of Europe, parts of North Africa, and the entire Mediterranean region.

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ThingsBoard Open Source IoT platform

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ThingsBoard is an open-source IoT platform designed for device management, data collection, processing, and visualization. It supports a variety of communication protocols, including MQTT, CoAP, and HTTP, allowing seamless integration with diverse devices and sensors. The platform offers powerful tools for monitoring and controlling devices, as well as visualizing sensor data through customizable dashboards.

ThingsBoard provides essential features such as device provisioning, real-time data processing, and rule engine capabilities for automated actions based on data inputs. It also supports user role management, enabling secure access control. With its scalable architecture, ThingsBoard can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud, making it suitable for a wide range of IoT applications, from smart cities to industrial IoT use cases. The platform is highly extensible, supporting integration with third-party systems and services, ensuring flexibility for developers and businesses alike.

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Abeeway 1WL devkit with Murata LBEU5ZZ1WL all in one tracking module

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The Abeeway 1WL development kit is dedicated to geolocation through various means such as GPS, GPS sniffing, WiFi sniffing, radio triangulation, BLE sniffing…, using the different components of the Murata LBEU5ZZ1 SiP module and Actility’s ThingPark geolocation platform, which gives meaning to the raw listening data. Abeeway is a key player in fleet tracking solutions, providing both a business platform and hardware solutions for this purpose.

Through Actility/Abeeway, I was able to obtain an evaluation kit whose main goal is to simplify access to these multiple geolocation technologies for the rapid development of customized tracking solutions.

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Create some Mioty Devices – Step 1

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In my previous article, I shared my first steps as a Mioty user. Today, I want to dive into the creation of devices using this technology. It took me some time to publish this follow-up, as I encountered a few challenges—primarily related to an ecosystem that, unfortunately, remains stubbornly inaccessible.

In this initial post, I’ll share my experience with a ready-to-use module from Radiocraft. Future articles will explore other solutions… depending on my available time, of course. As you can probably tell, I haven’t been posting much lately, as I’ve been busy with other projects. Stay tuned!

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First steps with Mioty with Miromico Edge gateway

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I’ve been following Mioty for a long time now, but until recently, it was more of a vaporware in terms of testability than a deployable technology. I won’t go back over the nauseating marketing communication led by those promoting this technology, as I’ve already touched on that in several articles.

The good news is that for the past few months, it has been possible to deploy it thanks to the excellent Miromico solution, a Miro Edge gateway, which is essentially an indoor LoRaWAN gateway with an integrated Mioty receiver in place of the LoRa concentrator.

Before diving into the details of Mioty, to define it briefly: it is a radio solution very close to LR-FHSS, which breaks down a message into small packets that are widely transmitted across the spectrum with redundancy, creating both temporal and frequency spreading. This reduces the risk of collision, increases capacity, and improves performance at the edge of the coverage area (which makes sense, especially in satellite communication where LR-FHSS is used).

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Wingbits, The DePIN FlightRadar24, ADS-B setup review

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Wingbit is a new DePIN blockchain whose goal is to collect ADS-B information provided by aircraft in flight to enable precise tracking, similar to what we know from FlightRadar24, but with a more massive, dense, and global approach. The underlying business model is the resale of this information to companies interested in exploiting it. It remains to be seen how large the demand for this will be in the long term.

However, this project is quite engaging, centered around a topic that resonates with many people, even outside the blockchain and geek spheres. Since it involves radio reception, the choice of hardware is an important consideration when starting the project. As a result, I conducted a small benchmark of various easily accessible equipment to design an efficient, low-cost receiver.

This article will interest anyone who wants to receive aircraft information (ADS-B), including for other projects, as Wingbit has just closed the possibility of building your own receiver.

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TheThingsConference 2024

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On September 25th and 26th, the new edition of TheThingsConference was held, the must-attend event of the LoRaWAN ecosystem and, more broadly, LPWAN. Even though the event, which was very open, is naturally becoming increasingly focused on TheThingsIndustrie’s solution and thus LoRaWAN, it remains an opportunity for numerous discussions in many other areas.

The organization was, as always, perfect, with ample space for side events that provide great opportunities for networking.

There were few announcements this year beyond the arrival of TheThingsIndustrie’s “plug & play” gateway and the introduction of trackers in the form of solar-powered tags, which seem to confirm the trend of IoT in this form factor, following RAK Sodaq and many other ongoing projects.

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IoT slide deck 2024-09 Update

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Here is the update of my IoT slide collection, which now approaches 400 slides that you are free to reuse. In this new edition, you will find technical elements on Meshtastic, Mioty, DePin, LoRa updates throughout, and a few introductory slides on blockchains. However, on this point, my new deck, published a few days ago, is more relevant.

As usual, to go further, you can find video content on my Youtube channel, like my new MooC about Block Chain and my IoT MooC (long version) posted this year.

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