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Integration

LoRaWAN for buildings: TTN, Helium, ChirpStack plug-and-play

Connect your LoRaWAN sensors to your smart building without an integrator. Auto-discovery on first uplink, 300+ device profile catalog, downlink commands, Modbus fallback for legacy equipment.

Why LoRaWAN dominates smart building IoT

LoRaWAN has emerged as the dominant IoT protocol for commercial buildings. Three reasons:

  • Range: 1-5 km indoors, up to 15 km LOS
  • Battery life: 5 to 10 years on an AA cell for a standard sensor
  • Cost: sensor 30-80 €, gateway 150-500 €

Covering a 5,000 m² building with one gateway is enough. The catch: low throughput (max ~10 messages per day to stay legal in EU868). More than enough for supervision (temperature every 10 min) but not for video.

The four LoRaWAN providers supported natively

The Things Network (TTN) — open community, free up to 10 devices, paid beyond. Simplest to start.

Helium — global decentralised network, ~$10/year per device.

ChirpStack — open source self-hosted, recommended for multi-building deployments wanting full stack control.

Loriot — commercial EU provider with SLA.

For each provider, the SensIa onboarding wizard asks for your API key and application ID, then automatically syncs your devices and their profiles.

Auto-discovery on first uplink

You install a new LoRaWAN sensor in your building, register it with your provider. On the first uplink, SensIa detects the device automatically, resolves its profile in the 300+ model catalog (matching by LoRaWAN vendor_id/device_type or payload signature), decodes the values, generates the corresponding datastreams.

No manual input. If the device is unknown to the catalog, an LLM classifier automatically enriches the catalog in 30 minutes after ~10 observation uplinks.

300+ pre-wired device profiles

SensIa maintains a catalog of 300+ LoRaWAN device profiles, mainly from common vendors:

  • Dragino: LHT52, LHT65, LSE01, LTC2
  • Decentlab: DL-DUS, DL-MBX, DL-LP8P
  • Adeunis: Field Test, Pulse, Temp
  • Milesight: EM300, AM103, WS101
  • Browan: TBHV110

Each profile contains physical ranges, units, IPSO LwM2M mappings, typical cadence. The catalog is versioned — each revision tracked in an audit log.

Modbus fallback for legacy equipment

Not all your equipment will be LoRaWAN. For boilers, HVAC BMS, UPS units already installed that speak Modbus TCP or RTU, SensIa offers a Modbus fallback via a dedicated gateway — a Raspberry Pi with our docker OS image bridges Modbus → MQTT → SensIa cloud.

No legacy hardware modification, you keep your PLC in place and SensIa reads in parallel.

Frequently asked questions

What's the real LoRaWAN range in a building?
Indoors: 1 to 3 km in dense zones (offices, reinforced concrete walls), 3 to 5 km in airy zones. Outdoors line-of-sight: up to 15 km. For a standard 5,000 m² 5-floor building, one gateway at the middle level covers amply.
How much does a LoRaWAN gateway cost?
Entry-level (single-channel for ~10 devices): 80 to 150 €. Indoor multi-channel: 250 to 400 € (RAK7268, Mikrotik wAP LR8). Outdoor industrial: 500 to 1,000 € (RAK7289, Multitech Conduit). For most commercial buildings, an indoor multi-channel gateway at ~300 € is enough.
What battery life for a LoRaWAN sensor?
Standard sensor (temp + humidity, 1 uplink every 10 min): 5 to 10 years on AA lithium. High-frequency sensor (1 uplink every 1 min): 1 to 2 years. Sensor with display: 6 months to 2 years. Uplink cadence drives consumption; SensIa can send a downlink to reduce it in case of critical battery.
How does SensIa access my TTN application?
3-screen onboarding wizard: TTN API key generated from your console with read scope on the application, application ID, SensIa syncs devices automatically. No manual per-device re-onboarding. If you switch provider later (TTN → ChirpStack), SensIa migrates the datastreams without history loss.

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