Helium — The first wireless peer-to-peer network for IoT devices

Time Magazine named startup Helium the best invention of 2019. Helium is building the world’s first peer-to-peer wireless network for the Internet of Things devices and is already in more than 1,000 cities in the US. Devices include smart pet collars, e-scooters, medical devices, and more. Helium Hotspot operators are paid with a new cryptocurrency based on the Helium Blockchain.

How the Helium network works — The concept behind it

The Helium Network is designed to allow customers to benefit from energy-efficient, cost-saving, high-quality, and innovative IoT devices. So smart home devices, smart pet collars, e-scooters, shared bikes, environmental monitoring sensors, medical devices, and much more.

The system behind it is very open, so end-users or businesses can buy the Helium Hotspots and operate them themselves. Each operator of a Helium Hotspot thus builds the network and owns the associated nodes themselves. Thus, the Helium network is a composition of many individuals and is therefore also called People’s Network.

Each Helium hotspot has a Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN), which, in contrast to average WLAN routers, has a range that is almost 200 times greater. As a result, the IoT devices can connect to the networks cost-effectively and without a WLAN or SIM card. Additionally, connecting via LoRaWAN is more power-efficient than via WLAN.