Cellular IoT (LTE-M and NB-IoT)

The advent of cellular IoT technology has opened up a world of new applications. Moreover, when ultra-low power capabilities are introduced, the potential applications grow exponentially, revolutionizing the IoT landscape.

Nordic’s ultra-low power nRF91 Series seamlessly integrates LTE-M, NB-IoT, GNSS, RF front end (RFFE), and power management into an incredibly compact package, which opens up new frontiers of advanced application performance and possibilities. 

Firmware over-the-air (FOTA) updates will further enhance cellular IoT end products by making them adaptable, resilient and future-proof, allowing for updates and bug fixes to be rolled-out at scale and without manual intervention.

Maximizing asset tracking efficiency: Harnessing the power of nRF91 Series

To avoid the annual loss of billions of dollars resulting from asset misplacement, damage, or theft, reliable asset tracking emerges as a cost-effective solution to monitor and locate assets. Implement geo-fencing technology and receive real-time notifications whenever an asset moves beyond a specified geographical area, enhancing security measures. Asset tracking fosters productivity improvements by offering insights into asset usage and workforce management. It allows businesses to monitor key metrics like speed, distance, and time on the road, enabling a comprehensive understanding of worker performance and vehicle usage, ultimately leading to more informed decisions.

Asset tracking offers a multitude of use cases such as:

• Wearables for tracking people or pets: Our compact and low-power solution enables wearables that can track the location of the wearer, whether it be employees in a hospital, residents at a nursing home, or your neighborhood cat.
• Workplace safety: Tracking health and location of personnel in various works places (e.g. mining, off-shore platforms, building sites) for quick notifications in case of accidents or other potentially hazardous situations.
• Pallet tracking: Location tracking of pallets provides visibility to be able to locate resources, and can also help with theft recovery and impact detection.
• Geo-fencing: Through geofencing, you can add a virtual perimeter and be notified if tracking devices breach it.
• Vehicle tracking: Track vehicle usage with metrics such as speed, distance, and time on the road, helping you understand the performance of workers.
• Portable medical devices: Increasing efficiency in healthcare scenarios by ensuring the location of portable equipment is known at all times.

 

Benefits of cellular IoT for asset tracking:

• Global coverage: Based on existing cellular infrastructure which offers global coverage, no need to maintain your own infrastructure.
• Future proof: LTE-M and NB-IoT are now 5G technologies, supported for a long time.
• Long range: Cellular IoT has a typical range between 11-15 km, and NB-IoT is very good for underground applications.
• High throughput: Cellular IoT offers better throughput than competing technologies while still being very low-power.
• Ultra-low-power: The nRF91 Series is built from the ground up with ultra-low power in mind, allowing for very long battery life – batteries might not be expensive, but changing them on devices out in the field certainly is.
• Ready-made applications: The nRF Connect SDK contains the Asset Tracker v2 application, an out-of-box ultra-low power asset tracking sample that works with the nRF9160 DK and Thingy:91. 
• nRF Cloud services: Our nRF Cloud offers multiple different location services based on your power consumption and accuracy requirements. 
  • Provide LTE-based location services (Single-cell, Multi-cell) for low power consumption with a trade-off on accuracy.
  • Provide LTE-based enhancements to the GPS performance (A-GPS, P-GPS)
  • Optimize your application by integrating the nRF70 Series in the design to achieve SSID-based Wi-Fi locationing, which delivers a great combination of low power consumption and high accuracy and works well indoors.

 
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Create more sustainable urban environments

Smart cities, as a specific IoT vertical, offer a wide array of compelling benefits that make them an attractive prospect. One key advantage lies in efficient waste management, where remote monitoring streamlines resource allocation and drives cost savings. Additionally, smart cities provide optimized parking solutions through real-time access to parking availability data, reducing fuel consumption, saving time, and alleviating traffic congestion. Energy-efficient street lighting is another notable benefit achieved through remote monitoring and control, leading to substantial power conservation and cost-efficiency.

Lastly, effective environmental management is a crucial facet facilitated by collecting sensor data and environmental measurements. This data allows for predictive maintenance, promptly detecting and addressing environmental issues to ensure a cleaner, safer, and more sustainable urban environment. These benefits collectively underline the significance of embracing smart city technologies to enhance the quality of life, promote sustainability, and optimize urban functionality.

Benefits of cellular IoT for smart city:

• Take advantage of existing infrastructure: Cellular IoT utilizes existing cellular infrastructure that is already deployed in most urban areas, enabling easy and low-cost deployment.
• Coverage: With an estimated range of 1 km in urban areas and up to 15 km in rural areas, cellular IoT has the range to be able to deploy in a city and have the needed coverage.
• Future proof: LTE-M and NB-IoT are now 5G technologies, supported for a long time, which is important when deploying at a city-wide scale.
• High throughput: Cellular IoT offers better throughput than competing technologies while still being very low-power.
• Ultra-low-power: The nRF91 Series is built from the ground up with ultra-low power in mind, allowing for very long battery life – batteries might not be expensive, but changing them on devices out in the field certainly is.

 
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Transforming utility infrastructures: Embrace the power of smart metering

Managing and maintaining utility infrastructures is becoming more intricate. Disruptive technologies like renewable energy, wind, solar, and hydrogen are driving the evolution of utility systems, opening up significant opportunities for smart metering.

Smart meters play a crucial role in this transformation by enabling the collection and processing of metered information. They offer a range of benefits, including:

• Monitoring and controlling infrastructure: Provide real-time monitoring and control of utility infrastructure, allowing for optimized resource allocation and streamlining operations by identifying and addressing bottlenecks and inefficiencies.
• Improve operational effectiveness: Eliminate manual meter reading and enable remote configuration and diagnostics.
• Empowering informed decision-making: Smart meters make metered data readily available to end-users. By accessing accurate and real-time information, consumers can make informed choices about their energy usage, fostering greater energy efficiency and sustainability.

 

Benefits of cellular IoT for smart metering:

• Ultra low-power: Allows for very long battery life – batteries aren’t expensive, but changing them is.
• nRF Cloud services: Our cloud platform offers Firmware-Over-The-Air services, enabling you to update deployed devices remotely.
• Ready-made applications: The nRF Connect SDK contains the Serial LTE Modem application, which can be used to emulate a stand-alone LTE modem. We also offer several samples that are an excellent starting point for your smart metering applications, such as the nRF CoAP Client and LwM2M Client.
• Choose the technology for you: Offering both LTE-M and NB-IoT support, where NB-IoT is typically more suited for water and gas to benefit from better indoor penetration, and LTE-M for electricity meters to benefit from lower-latency. Giving you the option to choose an open standard as opposed to many of the proprietary solutions on the market today.
• Flexible SIM solutions: We offer both Software SIM and e-SIM solutions; once you close the meter, you cannot open it back up.

 
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Increasing efficiency and better resource usage

The agricultural sector faces new challenges, including shifting dietary preferences, rising labor and energy costs, and environmental changes exacerbated by climate change. The solution lies in smart farming, which harnesses data and connectivity, enabling farmers to make precise decisions and maximize yields with minimal resources. Smart agriculture offers many different use cases, including:

• Irrigation monitoring & control: Wireless monitoring enables farmers to detect potential leaks in irrigation systems and shut off the supply remotely, reducing water waste and lessening damages. 
• Smart crop monitoring: Wireless sensors to monitor soil, weather, humidity, temperature 
• Livestock monitoring: Monitor the location and the health of your livestock through sensors that will transmit

 

Benefits of cellular IoT for smart agriculture:

• Direct-to-cloud communication: With cellular IoT, each device can communicate directly with the cloud, making it ideal for use cases where devices are placed very far away from each other.
• Scalable: Cellular IoT is very scalable, allowing you to start with a small number of devices and scale up.

 
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The next revolution

The fourth industrial revolution drives transformative changes across various sectors, including cellular IoT applications. Smart grids are revolutionizing how industries manage their power resources. It facilitates efficient communication between connected devices and hardware, enabling the detection of energy spikes, equipment failures, and power outages in real-time. Predictive maintenance is another cornerstone of Industry 4.0, empowering industries to monitor equipment performance. By collecting and analyzing data, it predicts potential outcomes, minimizing downtime and optimizing productivity. 

Benefits of cellular IoT for industry 4.0:

• Global coverage: Monitor equipment and collect data in remote or hard-to-reach locations where other forms of connectivity are not available or reliable.
• Reliable, secure connectivity: Ensuring data is transmitted and received without interruption or compromise. This is particularly important for predictive maintenance solutions, as any disruption to data transmission could result in missed alerts or delayed maintenance, potentially leading to equipment failure and downtime.
• Scalable: It can send large amounts of data to be analyzed in the cloud in real time. This is crucial for predictive maintenance solutions, as they require the continuous monitoring and analysis of data from multiple sources.
• Cost efficient: It does not require expensive custom connectivity solutions or private networks. Cellular connectivity is becoming better tuned to IoT needs, and costs are decreasing.

 
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