Here’s Something Entertaining In The IoT
In a chapter out of IoT news-of-the-weird, here’s a pro-LoRaWAN writer politely destroying whatever threads of low power legitimacy NB-IoT might still be holding onto. Like one drunk yelling that another drunk should not be allowed to drive, here’s a LoRaWAN person getting a chance to claim another “LPWAN” firmware stack is less capable than LoRaWAN. And he’s sort of right.
Hard to believe that after millions in marketing dollars, NB-IoT has stuck it’s neck out so far as to make itself a worthy target for … LoRaWAN. But the numbers, as I’ve written here and here, are bad for NB-IoT. And they are pretty bad for LoRaWAN, too.
For fixed meter reading applications where a message or two per day is all that is required, NB-IoT might work in a limited capacity. But as soon as the endpoint begins moving, requires more frequent communications, or needs to support real-time location, NB-IoT nukes your battery and becomes effectively useless.
And LoRa is a good LPWAN radio (and getting better, it seems), but LoRaWAN is comically bad freeware and a disaster for non-fixed endpoints. Far better alternatives are, of course, available.
Just remember: friends don’t let friends use NB-IoT, but real friends don’t let friends use LoRaWAN, either.
