LPRS (Low Power Radio Solutions), worldwide radio specialists supplying high reliability wireless solutions, has been appointed by Link Labs to sell its market leading LoRaTM range of wireless modules and gateways.
Based in Annapolis, MD, outside Washington DC, Link Labs has developed novel methods for communicating with multiple wireless devices at long range, and with low power consumption using the LoRaTM networking protocol LoRaWAN.
As Jeremy Cowan reports, Link Labs was founded less than three years ago, and CEO Brian Ray says that the company is finding a high percentage of its customers in the US defence and homeland security sectors. However, Link Labs and LPRS see significant new business opportunities in Europe. Asked by M2M Now what business sectors LPRS and Link Labs would be targeting, Ray said, “We’re getting 80 to 100 new leads online per day, and over half are in Europe. A lot is driven by interest in LPWAN technologies and our focus on private networks. We don’t have any targets in the European defence market, there’s a lot of red tape involved for US companies there.
“Our targets are companies large and small, solving wireless connectivity in enterprises, smart cities, and we’re seeing particular interest in smart agriculture. A base station on a barn can connect to devices measuring things like soil moisture, pH levels, and so on. There’s also elevator control, lighting and access control, there are a ton of use cases benefiting from power efficiency. A LoRa chip uses the same power as any other wireless transmitter, but the energy saving is in the protocol transacting with the network in a power-efficient way. They sleep power efficiently,” Ray added. “What’s great about LoRa chips in applications like door locks or irrigation control is that we can ‘sniff’ the frequency and not have to run the receiver all the time.”
This technology offers the ability to connect hundreds or even thousands of sensors and actuators over a wide area to a single gateway, thus providing a complete solution for end users to get their IoT (Internet of Things) products to market quickly.
System builders can simply and quickly bring long-range wireless communications to their own devices and efficiently cover suburbs, cities and rural areas using a range of base stations and repeater technologies. (Also see: Link Labs announces distribution agreement with Arrow Electronics, and Link Labs raises $6 million in Series A funding.)
In addition, Link Labs’ proprietary Symphony Link protocol provides ancillary features that include over-the-air (OTA) upgrades, quality of service, multicasting and other features not currently available within LoRaWAN. (Also see: Link Labs announces LoRaWAN IoT gateways for Europe and the US.)
“LPRS have almost 30 years’ experience of delivering wireless communication solutions to our customers.” states Nick Pummell, newly appointed managing director of Witney, UK-based LPRS. “Link Labs’ commitment to the new long range LoRaTM-based hardware and software solutions will allow us to deliver complete end-to-end solutions to our customers for their long range IoT applications.”
“We are excited to announce that our first major distribution agreement in Europe is with LPRS. They have the deep wireless systems knowledge and integration capabilities as well as world class service capabilities that our customers in Europe need,” said VP of Business Development and Marketing, Bryan M. Eagle III.
The range of products includes high and low power RF transceiver modules, repeaters and indoor/outdoor 8/24/64 channel gateways and base stations. The devices are capable of licensed or unlicensed deployment from 137 MHz – 1020MHz with US FCC certification for operation in the 915 MHz ISM band and ETSI certification for use in the 868 MHz band.
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