Episode 9

Early Adopter: Paul Pinault

Paul Pinault is one of those rare people in IoT who not only understands the technology inside and out — from gateways to encryption keys — but also deeply gets the business of it. He started tinkering with low-power wireless before most people could even spell LPWAN, working with Sigfox back in 2014, and since then he’s helped shape the LoRaWAN landscape from multiple angles.

He’s built hardware when no off-the-shelf options existed, rolled out full-stack IoT solutions, run his own startup, and now powers the console over at MeteoScientific. He’s also a voice of clarity in the space — cutting through hype and focusing on outcomes that actually save companies money and solve real-world problems.

In this episode, we dig into the evolution of LPWAN, what mistakes businesses make when getting into IoT, and how Paul thinks about public, private, and shared infrastructure — especially in light of networks like Helium. Whether you’re deep in the weeds of deployment or just figuring out where LoRaWAN fits into your company’s roadmap, Paul’s got insights you won’t want to miss.

Let’s dig in.

Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulpinault/

https://www.disk91.com/

https://metsci.show

https://support.metsci.show

https://console.meteoscientific.com

Support for this show generously provided by the Helium Foundation's IoT Working Group, please check out the Foundation here:

https://www.helium.foundation/


To see if there's Helium coverage in an area, visit:

https://world.helium.com/en/iot/coverage

Transcript
Speaker:

Today's guest on the

2

:

MeteoScientific Business of LoRaWAN

show is Paul Pinault.

3

:

Paul is one of those rare people in IoT

4

:

who not only understands the technology

inside and out from gateways

5

:

to encryption keys,

but also deeply gets the business of it.

6

:

He started tinkering with low power

wireless before

7

:

most people could even spell LPWAN,

working with Sigfox back in:

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:

and since then, he's helped shape the

LoRaWAN landscape from multiple angles.

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:

He's built hardware when no off the shelf

options existed, rolled out full stack

10

:

IoT solutions, run

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:

his own startup, and now powers

the console over at MeteoScientific.

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:

He's also a voice of clarity in the space,

cutting through hype

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:

and focusing on outcomes

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:

that actually save companies

money and solve real world problems.

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:

In this episode,

we dig into the evolution of LPWAN

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:

What mistakes businesses

make when getting into IoT,

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:

and how Paul thinks about public, private

and shared

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infrastructure, especially in

light of networks like Helium.

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:

Whether you're deep

in the weeds of deployment

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:

or just figuring out where LoRaWAN fits

into your company's roadmap,

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:

Paul's got insights

you won't want to miss.

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:

Let's dig in.

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Paul,

thanks so much for coming on the show.

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Hey Nik. Thank you to invite me.

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Yeah, I'm super psyched.

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I mean, you've been in IoT

as long as anyone I've known.

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And you started doing LPWAN stuff

with Sigfox back in:

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So you got an 11 year head start on me.

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Just in., not just in wireless.

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Never mind the rest of IoT.

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You've been in the game a long time, Paul.

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What do you see people make mistakes on

when they first get into IoT or.

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Or maybe more specifically, LoRaWAN.

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I think the main issue I've seen is people

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trying to connect to device,

which is really close to the gateway.

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Oh, really?

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And so they try to be closer to the

get away.

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So it's less walking.

So they try to be closer.

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Yeah.

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You know in fact it's so sensitive

that to when your device is crossed

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as you get to when you get a situation

and the device does not receive anything.

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And so you try

you try trying try out in fact.

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So I have plenty of questions like this.

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And it's just oh guys,

just put your device in the other room

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that I'm the one

where you want to get away.

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Oh, it works.

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That's.

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Yeah.

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That's a oh, no, it's more accurate.

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And that's across networks.

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That's not just one network.

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That's everything in LoRaWAN.

Just so sensitive.

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Yeah, yeah.

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It's really,

really related to the technology.

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Fact it just related to the fact

that this technology is so sensitive

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that, I mean, you can get signal at 120

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DBM, -120 140 DBM below zero.

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And I mean, it's like just to make

people understand this is actually imagine

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you have a big lake, you get a rock

and you put your rock in this big lake

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and you see these waves

and basically -140 DBM.

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It's like you are on one side of the lake

and on the other

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side of the lake,

you see the wave craving.

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And it's not a big rock.

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It's just really a small one.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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So that's that's crazy.

So if always close, it's.

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Yeah, it's it's high heat saturating

the sensitivity is a big deal okay.

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And that's a that's a cool hot tip from a

pro who's been doing it for a long time.

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Let's see.

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And you run the whole gamut.

So you've developed your own devices.

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You've rolled out software solutions.

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You run the console at MeteoScientific.

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So for anyone using MeteoScientific,

it's actually Paul

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doing all the, all the hard work

to make it work behind the scenes.

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Can you walk me through what you see

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with normal businesses,

like where should they focus the most on?

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Is it on developing a piece of hardware

or is it on integration?

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Or kind of where do you see it

being the best for business to integrate?

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It's a good question.

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I mean, like a, like,

like five, ten years ago.

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The interesting point was on hardware

because you need all the way

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to start something in good

to have a network,

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but if you don't have an outlet,

you can do anything.

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So it was hardware, but now you are

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many,

many hardware available in the market.

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So just time you create a device,

you get huge transition.

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You certifies a device.

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If you need something which is generic,

you go to another market.

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So currently it's really important

to, gives a device from a shelf.

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If you find it in most of the case

you will find it avoid to.

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Also, you know,

every time you have an idea you're like,

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oh it's good para I would like it to be,

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temperature between -40

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degrees up to 200 degrees on the market.

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Just minus 30 and going to 180.

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Okay. Yeah.

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No, in fact, with just

what is in the market.

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You can do plenty of things and

you can address like 80% of your market.

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So check the device on the shelf

and work on the business side.

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So how to join disciplines information.

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Because people don't want to device

to get the temperature.

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They want a device because they want

to optimize energy consumption.

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They want to optimize or I don't know,

or transportation foods, things like this.

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So yeah, buying the data is a resistance.

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There is so, you know, business

and you need to address your business.

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And I think the focus might be after

maybe you will discover

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that in that business

for addressing the 20%

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or for addressing in that business, many,

many more people,

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you need to get a specific device

because it need to be attacked, because

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it needs to be a Ip68 or a whatever,

and you will design something.

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But better to stop by the application

and by the is a business in my point of,

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you know, got it.

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So starting with the business problem

and then finding something

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that's off the shelf ready

and implementing that and then iterating,

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if you need some custom hardware,

you eventually get there clear.

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Clearly. Very important.

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Yeah. And I mean that comes from hard

won experience.

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You developed your own custom hardware.

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So these are lessons

learned in the field right.

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Yeah.

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Yeah I mean I've developed ideas

about where,

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my experience in developing hardware

in the last ten years

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is, and I mean, I do prepared

well because there was no hardware

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on the market I developed.

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I want to tracker.

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There was two tracker

on the market on Sigfox.

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When I started dropping my tracker,

I developed or we'll try low cost tracker.

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It's I mean something

which is radio and so on.

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So in specific use case it's interesting.

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But what I have seen

is that, I've made like 200

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different proof of concept

with my tracker, for example.

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And I mean, during that time,

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I spent a lot of time teaching

basically a business about,

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how is a tracker I works, what we can do,

what we can do with, with sigfox a lot.

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One technology.

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And, in fact, at the end,

there's always a good reason

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for not starting, like,

okay, your tracker is good,

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but too expensive, too big and not enough

autonomy, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

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And what I've seen is because

the technology is moving really fast.

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I mean, it was moving very fast.

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When you come back like one year after,

I say, okay,

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my tracker was good,

but it was too expensive.

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And you were talking about,

dividing by two.

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How did the news how is solution for you?

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I can divide the price by two,

thanks to new technology to.

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Oh, yeah, but, you need to be a little

bit smaller because then, you know.

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Right. Oh,

there's a reason for not starting.

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That's that's why my point of view

now is when you address it by zoom,

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there's a device,

you have device description with people.

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And that's always a problem

because as you have device

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description, is it always want something

better or less expensive blah blah blah.

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Right. Never quite funny.

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So I have a discussion

based on the API change.

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Again,

we don't care about the so hardware.

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In fact,

these are the right level of discussion.

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Yes, you are losing your assets.

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Okay. Yeah.

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You know how many assets

how you losing per year?

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Okay.

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I propose a solution

where we're going to track your assets.

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So where are we going to track? It's

my business.

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You don't care how many assets.

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How many? That's the value of the assets

you lost.

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I cannot say 1 million.

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Okay, I think that we can save,

like, 10% of this was my solution.

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Okay, so we can get 100 K.

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Okay, great.

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So what I propose is

I will make a solution for you.

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You don't care about where my problem

all the way apart from my problem.

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And you're going to find like 50.

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I'm going to share the resume.

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So you're going to sell 50

K I'm going to get 50 K

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and all together

we're going to make it working.

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And if we get more than 10%

that's going to create the business.

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We make a lot of money

was that if we are 10%, we have a success.

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And, maybe it's a device I will use

contact address 100% of the product,

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maybe can address some 20% of the product

or other 10% inside.

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But right.

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By using this we start saving the money.

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And it's where I say,

okay, my startup device

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it address like 20% of the assets.

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With this we save like 10%.

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So alpha for what is track.

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So we made some money.

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Okay.

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We know that we can go now to 50%

by designing something special.

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So let's go let's design a design.

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And there's no question at this moment of

what's the size of price

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of not because we are just talking about

money saved and that makes it the things

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super cool.

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Yeah, I think

I'll do a whole session on on selling,

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but you certainly had some experience

with it.

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Let's see when companies are coming

in, founders, CEOs coming and saying,

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how should we learn?

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When should we deploy our own gateway?

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Should we buy all of our own stuff?

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Do you think that most of the time,

I mean,

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you and I have a pretty good

shared history with helium, so

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I've got an idea of how you might answer.

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But do you think that companies

should own their own infrastructure?

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Should they use

currently existing infrastructure?

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What would you generally recommend

companies think about?

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I mean, you have like three choice.

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I would say first choice.

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He is I mean stand out one,

just different stand out

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but not stand out in terms of our telco,

which is, okay, I'm good.

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I go to our public

about all the other global coverage,

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which is not easy, you know,

you know how one shows a country

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where you have global

coverage is is quite, quite drought.

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Right.

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But I mean, you try an industry

and you have a zone so you can be covered.

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So that's one way to do.

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And you don't care

about the infrastructure.

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You just pay for your device.

That's quite interesting.

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I mean if you don't have a lot of device,

like if you have a like 100

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or even to 1000 device in one location,

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that can be interesting

compared to managing your own getaways.

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But it means that every year

you're going to pay like 5

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to €10 in dollars, for,

for managing your device.

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And so at the end of the year,

it's a bill.

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But if you look at it,

imagine that you have a,:

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at the end of the year.

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It's just like ten, ten K

and it's look like expensive.

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But just imagine that

if you have to pay someone to go

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using warehouse and base station,

fix some field or do a grid or blah, blah.

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It's just like ten day of activity.

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I mean, ten, 20 different of the country.

Why? You answer.

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But it's it's not big on a year.

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So up to this,

an overall it's it's quite interesting.

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But before I mean, I,

it's like in electricity,

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you know, at the beginning of electricity,

everyone would have to eat.

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So I have bought for AC unit.

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Yeah. My son always.

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You will never create energy production.

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You need for your company.

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And you can have some if you get.

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But that's primary and basically

it will be the same, you know for you.

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So correct the 12 commit cents,

for, for the different reason.

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Honestly, I think that's, it's a

first things companies should have

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a look at other end as you also classical

way is manage my private network.

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So I deploy make getaway

and so I can scale with no of opex.

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No more opex.

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Yeah.

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So that's an investment for future you.

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You have fleets of device,

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and you think, like you could have,

:

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You have a economic equation.

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So that's quite interesting that way.

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And you learn.

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So yeah, that's going to be interesting to

to to have a look at.

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And most of the company are doing this.

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One of the other advantage

you have by managing your own gateway

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is that basically it's you're,

that's in your alertness

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with your punctuation,

your keys and so on.

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Event is always really well made for

separating the encryption, the signature,

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and eventually with now with 1.1,

you have two different signatures.

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So you can have one signature verified

by network operator and one by yourself.

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So it's really quite

well designed for this.

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But when you look at the implementation,

I mean, usually when you have a

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public operator, in fact,

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this public operator is merging

your keys, your signature and everything.

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So that's also a reason why, mega network

can be, can be interesting in that way.

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What do you think as a stupid things

with public operator

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is that is private operator.

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Sorry, is that you are getting data

from every networks

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and basically you are trashing all the

the things that are not on your network.

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So basically,

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I mean, in general from I would say

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in environmental impact

somewhere, it's like it's it's a waste.

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I mean, you get that from people.

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So you're trusting them as well.

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I don't really like.

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In fact,

this idea of having a hundred of networks

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are really close all together

and rejecting massive traffic.

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So I think it's more interesting

to, to see that

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this infrastructure may be shared. Right.

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So even if I have my private getaway,

I think it's very interesting

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to say, okay, instead of trashing,

I will route

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that information to,

the one that needs this information.

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And that's the idea

of the crucial networks or like Charles

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AC network and Aquila.

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And that's where, in my point of view,

that is the best.

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In fact, it's a predict network.

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So everywhere

anyone you can access at any two points

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or the, application in mobility

and it's also your private network.

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So it owns

what I say about the key management,

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the security

and so on is applicable on CDM.

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So you are a network and you have your,

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your security, your own servers, your

you manage your, your device.

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You don't really have a cost of scaling

due to the subscription because, I mean,

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when we see the

the fleets, I manage basically

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the average, subscription cost is a $0.4

a euro per device.

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So, I mean, you can have a lot of device,

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before see this as a, as a program.

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In fact, something that, came out well,

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I think is why I say is it's not public,

it's not private.

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And that's important, right?

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It means that it runs across of both.

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So in my point of view,

the best approach is to say, okay,

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I need to secure, my network.

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So where am I?

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So, and so I'm going to deploy my own jet

to wait on this,

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but instead of adding them

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into my private network

in just for myself, I will couldn't exist.

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Get to wait to here.

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Yeah.

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And so my data will come to my address.

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And the data from all

this will be to others.

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And so where equipment is shared,

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advantage is

if my getaway is shutting down

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for any technical reason,

I can count on the predicted talk.

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Yeah.

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You said predicted work

should on a run for any technical reason.

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I have my own ghetto.

We're working on this.

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So that's in demo, isn't it?

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Good.

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And, in terms of investments,

compared to a private network,

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I don't need to have the redundancy of

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three because there and then second

from the predicted rock around.

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So I can just have one get away eventually

to get away if I have a big site.

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And that's good enough.

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When in a private network

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separated from the rest,

I would need like three, 4 or 5.

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Yeah,

the price of getaway is not expensive,

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but the running cost

for maintaining and get away.

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And so it is I.

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So if I can reduce it's a good saving.

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Oh super cool.

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So it's a really good way

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to think about it from public to private

and then shared in between.

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And I can see why you were so excited

when helium came on.

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Okay.

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So I've got like

a million questions for it,

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but I know that it's getting late

for you on on waste any time.

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We'll have to have you back on.

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Thanks a ton for coming

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and super psyched to get to share

a little bit of your knowledge.

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And Lauren with the crew.

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Thanks, man. Hazra,

it's a pleasure. Donate to Tucson.

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That's it for

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this episode of The Business of LoRaWAN.

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I built this for you.

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The one person in about 100,000

who actually has an interest

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in how this tiny little slice of the world

works.

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Of course,

this isn't just about you and me.

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It's about everyone in law

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and how we can work together

to make an exceptional thing.

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LoRaWAN is a dispersed community

with little pockets of knowledge

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all around the world,

and most of them don't

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talk to each other as much as I'd like.

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So the first and best thing

we can do to make this show better

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is to get more guests

on who I don't even know exist.

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I want to talk to strangers. Strangers?

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Who are your friends.

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Please

introduce me to the most rad LoRaWAN air

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you know or point to my way, or help

reach out and give me a name.

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When it comes to running down

LoRaWAN guests,

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I can track a falcon on a cloudy day

if you can remember.

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Net sweet show you can find me.

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That's m et s sdi

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dot show w net seeker show.

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Okay, so sharing knowledge

by getting great guests on is the first

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and by far the most important thing

we can do to make this better.

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The next best thing for the show to do

is the usual stuff.

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:

Subscribe to the show, give it a review,

share it in your corner of the world

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:

again, that's next week's show.

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Finally, if you want to support the show

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financially, you can do that

over at support.metsci.show.

369

:

You'll see options there

for one time donations.

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If you really like this show,

as well as an ongoing subscription option.

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:

If you think the show is worth supporting

for the long term.

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If you want to try LoRaWAN for yourself,

sign up for a MeteoScientific account

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at console.meteoscientific.com and

get your first 400 data credits for free.

374

:

That's enough to run a sensor

for about a year.

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:

If you're firing every hour.

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:

The show is supported by a grant

from the Helium Foundation and produced by

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:

Crystal King, Inc..

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I'm Nick Cox.

I'll see you in the next show.

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Nik Hawks

Incurably curious, to stormy nights and the wine-dark sea!