A Year of Scalability, Vertical Growth, and the Future of IoT with LPWAN
As we reflect on 2024, it’s clear that this year has been one of transformative growth and discovery. At RAKwireless, we follow our "Come to the Field" strategy. We have visited over 60 customers in 15+ countries around the world.
This year, LoRaWAN® proved valuable in smart buildings and precision agriculture. It’s inspiring to see how LoRaWAN’s strengths in penetration, interference resistance, and low-power capabilities are driving scalable, real-world applications.
2024: A Year of Key Vertical Applications
Smart Buildings
Through collaborations with global giants like Schneider, Siemens, and Carrier, LoRaWAN has proven essential in retrofitting aging infrastructures for intelligent energy management. As ESG needs and energy-efficient solution demands grow, LoRaWAN is becoming a cornerstone in smart building transformations.
Industrial IoT
We supported ZF and Freudenberg in creating intelligent factories and partnered with Weidmüller to provide network solutions for solar power plants. The stability and cost-efficiency of LoRaWAN continue to make it an industrial favorite.
Precision Agriculture
Halter and Telequa introduced advanced tools for farmers with our collaboration. These systems improve irrigation and livestock tracking, increasing efficiency and profits. They also promote smarter resource use and reduce climate impacts.
Water Resource Management IoT
Our work with Connexin and Detectronic has pushed the boundaries of smart water management. This showcases LoRaWAN’s adaptability in a wide range of applications.
Hong Kong as a Smart City Model
Hong Kong exemplifies a city-driven approach to IoT adoption. It is known for its strong planning and reliable data platforms. It quickly adopts smart technologies to support sustainable growth. RAKwireless has played a pivotal role in advancing smart city initiatives here:
- Healthcare: Supporting projects like Kai Tak New Hospital’s wireless infrastructure and an emergency alert system for the Hospital Authority, delivering faster response times and improved healthcare operations.
- Energy Management: Partnering with DFI for real-time freezer monitoring in 7-11 stores and enabling McDonald’s Leed Zero restaurants to optimize energy usage.
- Environmental Monitoring: Collaborating with government departments on river monitoring systems to combat climate challenges and enhance emergency preparedness.
These successes underscore Hong Kong’s position as a testbed for practical IoT applications. They also reflect a growing global shift toward automation, compliance, and low-carbon economies.
Emerging Opportunities: AI IoT, Data, and Private LoRaWAN Networks
The convergence of AI, data acquisition, and private network demand has unlocked new avenues for LoRaWAN. AI applications in industries like construction, cold chain, and asset tracking have highlighted LoRaWAN as the backbone for robust data transmission. For instance:
- In construction, an AI-driven platform leverages LoRaWAN to optimize timelines, improve material sustainability, and enhance project efficiency.
- In the cold chain sector, predictive maintenance solutions have transformed operations by integrating AI and LoRaWAN to ensure product quality and operational reliability.
- For asset tracking, innovative IoT solutions combine LoRaWAN’s scalability with advanced monitoring capabilities. This supports critical applications, including healthcare logistics.
Meanwhile, the shift from cellular networks to LoRaWAN private networks is another exciting trend. Many industries are now adopting LoRaWAN for its cost-efficiency, reliability, and flexibility in deploying autonomous networks tailored to specific needs.
Enhancing User Experience and System Stability
While we released new hardware like the RAK Bridge IO and M.2 concentrators (RAK5166/RAK5167) and launched multiple WisDM updates, WisGateOS 2, and RUI3, our biggest achievement was delivering a cohesive and reliable user experience:
- Zero-Touch Provisioning: Accelerated deployment times by enabling pre-configuration under secure factory conditions.
- LoRaWAN Gateway Mesh: Developed with ChirpStack to address full network coverage challenges in complex environments.
- Advanced Troubleshooting in WisDM: Improved to offer a network health monitoring to empower users.
- Field Tester Pad: Showcased at the TTN conference, enabling users to generate actionable heatmaps for network performance.
Our focus remains on closing the loop for users, delivering a system that’s easy to deploy, use, and manage.
Bridging Technology and Industry: Driving Benchmark Applications
For the first time in my two-decade career in wireless communication, I’ve seen wireless technology deeply embedded into the core operations of industries. Meeting with irrigation specialists one day, solar energy operators the next, and smart building planners shortly after, I’ve experienced a remarkable convergence of technology and business needs.
Unlike traditional enterprise networks, these applications demand solutions that not only connect but actively participate in operations—managing data uploads, ensuring control stability, and meeting stringent industry requirements such as zero-packet-loss environments and stable downlink performance.
We believe the key to driving LoRaWAN adoption lies in creating benchmark applications that can be replicated across industries to expand customers’ TAM. Supporting these benchmark customers and advancing education around their applications are crucial steps toward this goal.
In 2024, we observed numerous signals of replicable applications, including:
- Temperature monitoring in hospitals, cold chains, supermarkets, and restaurants.
- Livestock tracking.
- Asset tracking with hybrid Bluetooth and LoRaWAN networks.
IoT Made Easy: Empowering Users through Ecosystem Support
Our vision of "IoT Made Easy" is not just a tagline but a commitment to simplifying and enabling success for our users. In 2024, this vision guided our efforts to enhance documentation, antenna innovation, and ecosystem collaboration, ensuring seamless adoption of LoRaWAN technology across diverse applications.
Enhancing Documentation and User Resources
Our Documentation Center now offers clearer and more detailed resources. It is designed to meet user needs better. While many customers already recognize RAK products for their detailed documentation, we pushed further to improve usability and clarity.
Beyond documentation, we identified the need for ensuring end-to-end communication quality in LoRaWAN applications. For example, we helped an Argentinian water meter company optimize their antenna designs. By fine-tuning their solution, they reduced gateway requirements from two per building to one for every two buildings while maintaining a 95% connection rate. This case study is a testament to our commitment to antenna innovation, supported by the release of a white paper on LoRa and NB node antenna design.
Strengthening Partnerships and Channel Training
LoRaWAN’s unique ecosystem advantage lies in its collaborative nature. Last year, we deepened our partner program by selecting seven active global channel partners to provide localized training, inventory solutions, and price support. This approach ensured that users could access products easily and receive services in their local languages, enhancing their understanding and value realization.
Additionally, we collaborated closely with industry leaders like ChirpStack and MOKO SMART. We did this to strengthen the ecosystem and offer solutions that reflect the dynamic needs of LoRaWAN applications.
Driving Ecosystem Innovation
We also focused on fostering innovation through collaborative efforts. By working with our partners and leveraging customer feedback, we ensured that our solutions, such as WisGateOS 2 and new hardware releases, continued to address real-world problems.
Looking Ahead to 2025
As we look to the future, we are filled with optimism for the continued growth of automation and IoT. We’re excited to integrate more IoT solutions into our own operations and explore new frontiers in AI and LPWAN.
We expanded our Meshtastic solutions from a single product to a comprehensive lineup in the previous year. It included boards, repeaters, and ready-to-use nodes. Building on this foundation, we plan to launch an online design tool to help users commercialize Meshtastic applications.
Additionally, our MNTD. brand introduced the Helium MOBILE MNTD.Fi Pro, the first third-party Wi-Fi hotspot, while our WisGate Connect Gateway became an early adopter of Mioty technology as we joined the Mioty Alliance. These innovations reflect our commitment to driving new use cases and supporting the broader IoT ecosystem.
Lastly, we recognize that trust and reliability are paramount. Our successful ISO9001 audit and ISO27001 renewal reaffirm our commitment to quality and data security.
Thank You
To our customers, partners, and team—thank you for making 2024 a remarkable year. We remain committed to our mission of making IoT easy and scalable. Together, we’re shaping the future of LPWAN and the IoT ecosystem.
We look forward to achieving even greater heights with you in 2025. Let’s continue building scalable solutions that unlock the full potential of IoT.
Warm regards,
Ken Yu,
CEO, RAKwireless
