Episode 48

From Ham Radio to 1,000+ Motes: Scaling LoRaWAN the Hard Way - Dana Myers - Meter.me

Dana Myers, CTO of Lamarr, talks about taking LoRaWAN from curiosity to critical infrastructure. A longtime systems engineer and ham radio operator, Dana explains how his early experimentation with LoRa in the 900 MHz band evolved into deploying hundreds of production devices monitoring water tanks and wells across rural terrain.

He walks through the pivotal moment when Lamarr abandoned an expensive, Raspberry Pi-based “Combox” approach and shifted to low-power LoRaWAN end nodes, cutting costs by an order of magnitude and making the business viable. The conversation dives into what really changes as you move from one prototype to 100 and then to more than 1,000 deployed motes in revenue operation, including hardware revisions, battery budgeting, vendor selection, and the decision to stop building everything in-house.

Dana also breaks down common misconceptions about LoRaWAN, particularly the tendency to treat it like a real-time broadband network. He explains why LoRaWAN requires a mindset shift toward small, infrequent data transmissions, report-on-change logic, and simplicity at the edge. Firmware over-the-air updates, ADR expectations, and backend-driven innovation are all examined through the lens of practical deployment.

The episode closes with Dana’s direct advice to young engineers entering the LoRaWAN space: understand your customers, avoid sunk cost traps, fail fast when necessary, and design for simplicity from day one.

Dana on LinkedIn

Meter.me

  • Helium Global IoT Coverage - Want to know if Helium coverage exists where you need it? Check out this map!
  • Helium Foundation - The Helium Foundation's IoT Working Group (IOTWG) has generously provided support for the first 6 months of shows, please go check them out and consider using the Helium LoRaWAN as a primary or backup on your next deployment. With over a quarter million gateways deployed worldwide, it's likely that you have and can use Helium coverage.
  • Support The Show - If you'd like to support the MetSci Show financially, here's where you can donate on a one-time or an ongoing basis. Thank you!
  • MetSci Show - If you'd like to use our IoT or AI Data Value calculators, or you'd like to contact me, the MetSci Show site is the best way to do it.
  • MeteoScientific Console - Use LoRaWAN - The MeteoScientific Console allows you to use LoRaWAN today. As long as you have Helium coverage (and you probably do, about 90% of populated areas in the world have a gateway within 2 miles), you can onboard a sensor. You can always check coverage at https://explorer.helium.com and switch to the "IoT" tab in the top right.

Transcript
Speaker:

Today's guest on

2

:

MeteoScientific's The Business of LoRaWAN

is Dana Meyers, CTO of Lamarr, Inc.

3

:

and a longtime systems

engineer and ham radio operator.

4

:

Dana brings a rare combination

of RF intuition, operating system level

5

:

engineering experience from his years

at Sun Microsystems, and hard won start up

6

:

lessons, from taking a LoRaWAN product

from zero

7

:

to more than 1000

deployed motes in the field.

8

:

In this conversation,

we talk about how his background in ham

9

:

radio shaped his understanding of LoRa

before LoRaWAN, the technical and business

10

:

pivot from a $1,500 Raspberry

Pi Combox, to low power LoRaWAN and nodes.

11

:

What really changes when you scale

12

:

from one device to hundreds

in revenue operation, and why most people

13

:

misunderstand LoRaWAN

as a real time, high bandwidth network

14

:

when it's actually built for small amounts

of data sent infrequently.

15

:

This episode is sponsored

16

:

by the Helium Foundation and is dedicated

to spreading knowledge about LoRaWAN.

17

:

If you'd like to try Helium’s

publicly available global LoRaWAN for free

18

:

and support

the show, sign up at metsci.show/console.

19

:

Now let's dig into the conversation

with Dana Meyers.

20

:

Dana,

thanks so much for coming on the show.

21

:

Super excited to have you here.

22

:

Well, thank you so much, Nik

I was flattered when you asked.

23

:

I'm happy to be here.

Hopefully I won't let you down.

24

:

I think you're going to crush.

25

:

I thought we might start

with how being a ham

26

:

radio guy has informed your use of LoRaWAN

or RF in general.

27

:

And do you think that's something that

a lot of LoRaWAN folks should explore?

28

:

That is an excellent

and outstanding question,

29

:

and it kind of makes you wonder how

well you actually know me.

30

:

We met before because my initial interest

31

:

in LoRaWAN in 2017,

and it wasn't even LoRaWAN, it was LoRa.

32

:

I first saw the LoRa radios, you know,

33

:

I was selling them on breakouts

and I hey, I props I mean, here's a

34

:

a feather with a one of the

I really hope RF modules on it.

35

:

And and I thought wow spread spectrum.

36

:

It's chirp.

37

:

Oh wow 900 mag cool.

38

:

That's underutilized band.

39

:

It's a special band

as a as a radio amateur yourself.

40

:

You probably also understand

it has multiple users

41

:

and there's a lot of drama potentially

playing out there right now as well.

42

:

There always has been on 900 mag,

but it's more than ever right now,

43

:

so I initially was interested in LoRa

just as a radio nerd,

44

:

saying, okay, these 100 kilowatt radios

45

:

with kind of marginal antennas,

what can I do with this?

46

:

And so I actually built you can laugh,

I built an Apex implementation

47

:

and I'm trying to remember all the bits

I used, but it actually worked.

48

:

And was running on a feather.

49

:

I had a feather that I just built it

to send off packets under command,

50

:

and I drove around and I actually

had it up linking to the app sis

51

:

so you could go look on whatever app site

you know, on in the internet and see me.

52

:

And these are reports coming at a 900 mag

just range wasn't great.

53

:

My antenna was here at the house,

54

:

and I think I had about 9

or 10 miles of range across the flat.

55

:

I live adjacent to a a marsh.

56

:

I overlook a marsh.

57

:

I'm only about 90ft above sea level,

but the marshes sea level.

58

:

So it worked pretty well.

59

:

So that's how I get started.

60

:

That's

what really raised my interest in it,

61

:

and I had a lot of fun

experimenting with it.

62

:

I was very surprised

multiple times at what you could do

63

:

with that very low power

radio in particular, I,

64

:

I know that I went on a drive

one time and was driving

65

:

across a bridge

25 miles from here, above water.

66

:

It's about 200ft above the water

67

:

and excellent coverage all across

that bridge and 100 megawatt radio.

68

:

Just astounding capability.

69

:

It is impressive.

70

:

Yeah, just how far you can go

with how little energy.

71

:

You know, the processing game, the coding

gain, spreads spectrum in general.

72

:

It's all about spread your energy wide

and then you bring it back.

73

:

And and when you do that,

all the narrowband interferes,

74

:

they go away, they go away.

75

:

So are they are they the reduced.

76

:

So that's and particularly on under med

with so many users

77

:

that in particular

smart meters up here are utility

78

:

meters are all chattering away

constantly in an actual mesh network.

79

:

So it works very well in that presence.

80

:

So and maybe that's a nice segue into you

81

:

start off with LoRa at least in 2017.

82

:

And if we fast forward

to today, February:

83

:

and now you're working, doing

a lot of hardware stuff over at Lamar,

84

:

and you guys have more than one

LoRa radio.

85

:

Can you walk me through what it was like

to go from kind of 1 to 100 and maybe 100

86

:

to 1000?

87

:

Well, I'm going to start with

going from 0 to 1, okay.

88

:

Because that that was fine.

89

:

This was a case of where

so I'm a radio nerd,

90

:

but I'm also into cooking barbecue

and I enjoy wine.

91

:

And we have a wine country here.

92

:

And I have good friends in the wine

country here that I've known for years,

93

:

and I cook regularly with an association.

94

:

I'm actually a member of the Sassoon

Valley Vinegar Association.

95

:

I don't grill wine, I don't make wine,

but I'm a member of the association.

96

:

And through that,

I got to know a gentleman named George.

97

:

And George had been working for Lamar

or the predecessor

98

:

to Lamar Valley Internet,

for a number of years.

99

:

And he kept saying, you gotta come middle

for he's doing this great stuff.

100

:

You got to come meet over.

101

:

And I sure, sure, sure.

102

:

But I had plenty to do and all that.

103

:

I had a day job.

104

:

I was at Sun Microsystems from 1993,

right up until the acquisition

105

:

by Oracle in 2010,

where I remained on until:

106

:

You're on one of their patents, right?

One of the sun patterns.

107

:

I have set up a couple couple.

108

:

Okay. I'm working on.

109

:

Yeah, I spent some time in a job

of business development, even though

110

:

most of my time at sun was doing Solaris

operating system development,

111

:

I was behind getting functional ACP

into the service kernel.

112

:

And ironically, Intel

113

:

was our big partner for that back

when Intel thought we were a competitor.

114

:

But you know, funny how time works out.

115

:

So without digressing too much there,

I had a day job in

116

:

and I was busy and and over sounded great,

but I, you know, it just sounded.

117

:

Yeah, well, eventually I was lured in

and I started and this is in:

118

:

Yeah.

119

:

Late 2019, mid 2019, late 2019.

120

:

And I started advising

and I did this on spec

121

:

just to help out my friends, you know,

thought it was interesting people

122

:

that I mean, on one hand I got to get paid

for the things I do that had value.

123

:

On the other hand, I don't demand to get

paid because oftentimes I,

124

:

you know, you got to give to

125

:

the community and you have to become

there's a lot of fun work to do.

126

:

Yeah. Yeah.

127

:

So there's a

there's a definite trade off there,

128

:

although I'm definitely not on Reddit

doing young people's homework for them.

129

:

You know, like, you know, you know,

you embedded or are embedded, right.

130

:

So anyway, you know, for.

131

:

Yeah. Yeah.

132

:

You know, well, so I started

attending the meetings and at the time.

133

:

But meter me what became meter me

what they were doing was building a

134

:

they called it a comm box

and it was a Raspberry Pi.

135

:

And I don't know

if over describe this to you.

136

:

Maybe he did.

So I don't have to rehash that.

137

:

They're building this big heavyweight

thing with a battery in it.

138

:

And solar and RF link. Right.

139

:

So probably ubiquity

or something like that.

140

:

And by the time you had you counted up

just the cost of parts, the bomb,

141

:

the bill of materials

was like $1,500 to read a water meter.

142

:

And they were using breakout boards

and fly wires and jumpers.

143

:

And the first long conversation

I had with over was,

144

:

you're doing this wrong,

you'll never succeed doing this.

145

:

And he told me, because, well, I tried

15 years ago or 20 years ago and I failed.

146

:

I said, yeah, and this will fail to.

147

:

And because it's too expensive

by an order of magnitude,

148

:

I said,

you know, you're thinking about this.

149

:

I mean, you know, here he is

very successful deploying now wireless ISP

150

:

high speed, low latency,

a lot of bandwidth,

151

:

a very, very high quality

SLA service level agreement.

152

:

Yeah.

153

:

And I'm saying, yeah,

you don't need that for what we're doing.

154

:

Let's go. The other way.

155

:

You only need to take a measurement

156

:

maybe every two hours

or maybe when it changes or.

157

:

Right.

158

:

So let's go that way and that.

159

:

First there was some sunk cost going on.

160

:

So here we are talking to you.

161

:

This is a business conversation

fundamentally

162

:

although we're going to nerd out.

163

:

And so number one sunk cost.

164

:

Yeah we've already invested in this thing.

165

:

We already had done it at that.

166

:

So anyway after a while

167

:

a few months go by

and I did lend them a hand

168

:

and did some engineering for them

to try to improve this comm box,

169

:

and in particular a controller

based on an Esp32 to do all the real time

170

:

things the comm box had to do

without using any real power,

171

:

and then the comm box could wake up

and interrogate the Esp32 and

172

:

and that that was successful,

but it was still not the right thing

173

:

at some point over says to me, well,

by the way, I would point out

174

:

Valley Internet, they deploy

a lot of RF point to point links,

175

:

you know, broadband

highly familiar with 900MHz networking

176

:

and how bad it was,

how difficult it was unreliable.

177

:

It was how expensive.

178

:

Everything about it was a turn off.

179

:

So when I said 900MHz,

you can just seal it.

180

:

We're, you know, shut down.

181

:

And I said,

no, no, no, no, no, it's better than that.

182

:

So anyway, the 0 to 1, I built

183

:

a simple mode out of or,

you know, end node by remote.

184

:

I built one out of that kind of stuff.

185

:

And for folks who are watching two things,

you know, for reviews mode,

186

:

which I haven't heard before,

187

:

maybe it's just my stunning ignorance

once again surfacing.

188

:

I would normally call it a sensor or

an end node, but you guys call it a mode.

189

:

Is there some terminology

that I'm missing, or is that

190

:

that's actually coming from the

the LoRaWAN, a LoRa Alliance terminology?

191

:

That's where I actually learned that from.

192

:

So back in the official again,

193

:

my ignorance can be stunning

in the official stuff,

194

:

which will put you right to sleep

if you read it. Right.

195

:

Yeah, maybe that's my excuse.

196

:

Certainly got to read some specs

once in a while.

197

:

And that's where I got that from in. Okay.

198

:

But the only ones, it's an end

node. It's not the sensor itself.

199

:

It's not the thing

actually taking the measurement.

200

:

Oh it's the radio.

201

:

That's that's sending and receiving okay.

202

:

It's it's the it's the radio

and the radio has the migrated computer

203

:

that does that.

204

:

So anyway, I built one

and we bought a micro ticket.

205

:

You know we play nine

you know which is there.

206

:

You know I don't have one.

207

:

Do I have one here somewhere.

208

:

But I'm not going to leave her out.

209

:

Yeah. It's a, it's a podcast after all.

210

:

And we put one of those up on a mountain

211

:

peak near here where they have

one of the Valley Internet radio sites.

212

:

Really easy to do.

213

:

Connect it up.

214

:

There's power,

there's there's Ethernet boom.

215

:

And I'm about 10

216

:

or 11 miles as a crow flies from that.

217

:

And not particularly friendly terrain

either.

218

:

All the way.

219

:

It's on a high peak, but there's still

some terrain that might be an issue.

220

:

And I went down there,

take a little parking lot near

221

:

here,

and I fired up this thing and connected,

222

:

and I called up over and said,

hey, look, I'm connected.

223

:

And he said, oh crap.

224

:

Oh, right. This was this was too good.

225

:

But it meant that now

226

:

he really did have to make this big pivot

that we've been trying to avoid.

227

:

And the next thing that we discussed

was battery life.

228

:

And I knew

229

:

and I was confident and comfortable

with how the battery life would work.

230

:

He was not.

231

:

We started with solar charged lithium

232

:

ion cells, you know,

initially with pouch cells, although.

233

:

So cylindrical cells are a better choice,

you know, overall.

234

:

Yeah. He says it's not going to last.

235

:

And I said, let's just do an experiment.

236

:

And I, I said, I'll just build a test

bench.

237

:

A test bench that behaves

just like a real mode

238

:

with a real 420 pressure sensor.

239

:

The way we measure the tank

was with the barometric sensor

240

:

that lives at the bottom of the tank,

so just the pressure of the water,

241

:

you can turn from that, that and the

the dimensions of the tank.

242

:

So I built one in

and I said it's got to be realistic.

243

:

And so I made it

take a measurement periodically.

244

:

And like every I don't know, five minutes

because I implemented report on change.

245

:

This was a completely functioning sensor.

246

:

And in mode your mode,

this was the whole whole kit and caboodle.

247

:

And I charge the battery up and I put it

in a shoe box and I put it in a closet.

248

:

And every week

we'd have this, this meeting

249

:

where we talk about, oh, yeah,

the battery is it, you know, 92.2%.

250

:

And oh, now it's it, you know, 89%.

251

:

And after about five weeks

he said, this is going to work.

252

:

Let's go.

253

:

Can you just build one more of those

and I'll try it out on my tank up here

254

:

and I'll right there.

255

:

We've gone from 1 to 2.

256

:

We've gone to our first deployed sensor

it right there.

257

:

I just made a mistake.

258

:

What did I do?

259

:

I took the science experiment in the lab

and I deployed it to the field.

260

:

You got to be careful with that.

261

:

And so it happened after that,

of course, is what we deployed ten more.

262

:

And now we actually had ten more science

experiments.

263

:

Okay.

264

:

And we did a better job of building them

and making them rugged and

265

:

and George and the team, you know,

they were out finding the right enclosures

266

:

and trying to make them adequately

weather resistant and 60 close.

267

:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.

268

:

So you know,

and there was a real learning curve there.

269

:

And but we fell into the number one

trap of a small company

270

:

that thinks that they're doing something

new and innovative is you figure

271

:

you got to build all this stuff yourself.

272

:

And so that's one of the first lessons

I have here is you probably don't.

273

:

And if you do, if you do build something

yourself, you have to really add value.

274

:

It has to be not just a little bit,

not just a little better.

275

:

You really need to be an order

of magnitude more functional or better

276

:

or easier to deploy, or something

that shows up in your bottom line.

277

:

So anyway, we were deploying these were

building them out of the RFC:

278

:

There were some issues with

279

:

the maturity of the RSA stack at the time.

280

:

And yeah, I decided

281

:

I wanted to get more control

over the firmware stack.

282

:

And right about there, their AK 3172,

which is based on the micro,

283

:

the single chip Stm32 well, x x,

284

:

which, you know, combines both the radio

285

:

and and the MCU on a single chip

reduces the cost.

286

:

Really a great, great thing.

And I loved it.

287

:

And it made it really easy

because they had a WIS

288

:

WIS block module that swapped right out.

289

:

And so we were able to

and I wrote the firmware for that.

290

:

I actually read the whole design

to a Gen two and probably

291

:

three weeks worth of engineering,

and I even tested it.

292

:

Good. That's other thing

that we'll talk about that. Yeah.

293

:

And so we ended up

deploying hundreds of those hundreds.

294

:

I think we get

we probably deployed easily 500 of these.

295

:

We had them in revenue operation.

296

:

We have most of them are still out there

still in revenue operation.

297

:

But almost as soon as I realized what I,

298

:

you know, created in the lab

and then helped it out into the world,

299

:

you know, I was just reading

in Scientific American about reverse DNA.

300

:

You know, about reverse DNA. Oh, no.

301

:

Tell me so if you reverse the order

of DNA, you'll get the same thing.

302

:

But if it's like, a bacteria,

your body won't recognize it.

303

:

None of your immunity

will work against it.

304

:

So I built this reverse DNA thing,

and I pushed it out of the lab.

305

:

And now everyone's infected,

and their bodies can't fight it.

306

:

Well, anyway,

I think that's a different podcast.

307

:

Yeah, I know, I know, okay,

but I thought that.

308

:

I think that it is.

309

:

It is interesting though

since Chris. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

310

:

So the point is, is I immediately said

we have to find vendors.

311

:

And that was a real challenge for us

early on was finding vendors

312

:

that had the right functionality and the

right features hit the right cost point.

313

:

You know,

I I'll name check a few miles site.

314

:

You know, one of our partner vendors

let me still have a lot of stuff.

315

:

So we still have a lot of my site

in the field.

316

:

They have really improved,

you know, from the initial generations.

317

:

We started with dramatically improved

the product

318

:

and I can't complain about that.

319

:

And then of course I have more.

320

:

Oh, more to go. Oh, yeah.

321

:

Drug, you know, you know, I found very

low cost, but the quality is good.

322

:

And I think you said

they had some excellent documentation.

323

:

Some of the best documentation

out there. Yes, absolutely.

324

:

They use wiki page for documentation,

325

:

and it's extensive and comprehensive

and understandable.

326

:

And they're great in in fact, that was an

this is a

327

:

you know, for the podcast people

I'm holding up or for the audio listeners,

328

:

I'm holding up in scientific 53,

which is a

329

:

a mode or node made by your gyno,

their bank.

330

:

They were like 60 or 70 bucks.

331

:

I don't know what the tariffs

have done to them since,

332

:

but they make the source code

available for that

333

:

and you can use that is your jumping off

point to build anything you want to build.

334

:

It's it uses a different chip.

335

:

It's like an Stm32.

336

:

Well but it's the Chinese version

with the SSR or something.

337

:

Yeah. The arm star.

338

:

Yeah. And it's our 66.

339

:

I want to like 66 or 1 right in the MCU.

340

:

And that is like a cortex M4.

341

:

But it was actually

when ARM China was going rogue.

342

:

It's actually the IP that they produced.

343

:

So but works great.

344

:

You know great battery life.

Very much a fan of that.

345

:

Something else that you and you can I'll

let you tell people what I'm holding up.

346

:

You know what that is now,

this little field tester.

347

:

Yeah.

348

:

Yeah, that looks like and 1007 and one,

which worked out great.

349

:

I got a couple of those

around here as well.

350

:

And would you say there's

something that folks

351

:

get wrong about LoRaWAN

pretty consistently.

352

:

You hit a little piece of it

when you're talking about over

353

:

coming in from his background,

I'm thinking, okay, 900 a no go.

354

:

Yeah.

355

:

Is there anything else you talk about

whether it's ADR or frame

356

:

counters or whatever,

power budgeting, etc.?

357

:

Oh, is so the biggest thing that people

get wrong about LoRaWAN consistently,

358

:

and it's a thinking cap or a mindset

frame of mind, a context.

359

:

And that is LoRaWAN is slow.

360

:

It's small amounts of data. Infrequently.

361

:

It is not, you know, again, it's not that

362

:

that wireless ISP, high bandwidth,

low latency,

363

:

the you can just ping stuff

and know that it's online all the time.

364

:

You know, with LoRaWAN you got to be okay

not knowing for two hours

365

:

whether it's a mode or an end

node is working or not.

366

:

But at the same time,

you tailor the operation of it.

367

:

Now to how quickly the thing

that you're reading changes the tank.

368

:

Most of the tanks, so initially are in

probably still for water tanks.

369

:

It's report on change once

you change a certain amount,

370

:

and I think we sample

every 2 or 5 minutes for that.

371

:

Now that we've gone to Modbus

based sensors,

372

:

the power consumption

is dramatically lower with 420 sensors.

373

:

That was a really big battery budget hit.

374

:

When you think about it,

a 420 sensor can use a quarter of a watt

375

:

just to take a reading.

376

:

It's it's drawing a quarter of a what?

377

:

Yeah, yeah.

378

:

It's,

you know, 20 milliamps at 12V minimum.

379

:

It's 240mW right there.

380

:

And it's actually more than that.

381

:

So every time you turn the sensor

on, you're a quarter of what it was

382

:

hard on the budget.

383

:

Whereas my Modbus considerably better

low voltage, low current.

384

:

You're talking

385

:

tens of milliwatts maybe and much quicker

measurement of the reading.

386

:

So once you've done that.

387

:

But what people get, you know, wrong is

they think they have to know all the time

388

:

what something is.

389

:

You really, really need to know

when it changes.

390

:

And for some tanks, water tanks

that are out in the middle of a field

391

:

somewhere, you might only care about it

once a day.

392

:

So you have to go into with a mindset

393

:

of how often do I need to know

and approach it that way?

394

:

That is number one area of Siem.

395

:

Are people saying, well,

I just installed it.

396

:

I'm not getting readings yet.

So was it changed yet?

397

:

No, I would actually say that's the first

kind of structural thing you have to do.

398

:

The other thing

399

:

too, is kind of a mistake

we almost made, and I, I favor simplicity.

400

:

You'll figure that out about me

at some point early on.

401

:

Or if you said, well,

how do we do firmware updates?

402

:

I said, you know what

403

:

firmware is a component

soldered on to the printed circuit board?

404

:

That's our model and goes, well, well,

how does that work?

405

:

You know what?

406

:

If we wanted it,

407

:

I said most of the features

408

:

and most of the value we had

is in the network itself, in the back end.

409

:

Right?

410

:

We just have a sensor out in the field

that's getting data and, you know,

411

:

whatever rate.

412

:

Sure, there are parameters

we like to change, like how often

413

:

you take the reading

or what the threshold of change is.

414

:

So those things ensure and you can do down

links to to tune those in the field.

415

:

That's fine.

416

:

But but overall

the firmware tested a little more upfront.

417

:

And after that most of the new features

and most of the innovation

418

:

you're going to do

will be in your back end.

419

:

And what you do with the data.

420

:

That's been our approach.

421

:

So don't feel let's make it stable

and then let it rip.

422

:

Right now

there is a firmware update over the air

423

:

spec for LoRaWAN, which, if I understand

correctly, is a multicast

424

:

type approach is kind of like the way

cable boxes or satellite

425

:

box is used to get firmware

426

:

updates a little bit

at a time over a period of time.

427

:

Right? And sure, we've not deployed that.

428

:

It actually requires a a fancier network

than we've deployed.

429

:

I haven't even talked about our network

yet. That's okay.

430

:

I mean, you guys are doing

some really cool stuff

431

:

with updates and onboarding

and all the rest of it up for is

432

:

is telling me, right, right.

433

:

So that's another podcast you can go into.

434

:

I can tell you all the depth about that

you'd like, but the biggest

435

:

or the biggest adoption problem we've had

436

:

is it's not you or it's not me

that are installing these things.

437

:

Most of the time it's somebody who is more

438

:

accustomed

to installing a pump motor, right.

439

:

And getting the red wires where they go

in the black wire in the right way.

440

:

Right.

441

:

And not that they're not smart,

they're just not trained.

442

:

Different area of expertise.

443

:

Yeah, absolutely.

444

:

I mean, I don't know the first thing

about drilling a well, but

445

:

or maybe I know the first thing now,

but I didn't got to start digging.

446

:

Yeah. Yeah.

447

:

Well you have to drill at home

when you have to put out the anyways.

448

:

Yeah. Maybe have drill another.

449

:

Well this is sensor too.

450

:

Anyway, there

there's a lot of fun stuff I've learned.

451

:

But the point being, you know,

we don't have to we, we found

452

:

we could not require our,

our field partners,

453

:

our channel to actually know

454

:

all the technology that so many more.

455

:

So you've configured a lot of things.

456

:

You open the book up

and it says set this to that.

457

:

Well, what's your uplink to, you know,

and and here's your Debbie.

458

:

Why am I right.

459

:

And put in the, you know, whatever lens

and you know, your network key and

460

:

and that was an app key and that one needs

an API and this one needs a join you.

461

:

It's a it is like a

462

:

right.

463

:

Like please

could you just make this simple?

464

:

It was crucial

to take that out of the loop

465

:

and make it where

someone could just with a phone app,

466

:

but the phone app, ideally

with no connectivity?

467

:

No, because a lot of our

I mean, that's the point of LoRaWAN.

468

:

You don't have any, you know,

cellular connectivity where you are,

469

:

although that may get better with,

you know, the Starlink non-terrestrial.

470

:

But anyway, so that's been the big,

471

:

big push to drive adoption,

make it possible to be adopted.

472

:

And that came through super strongly.

473

:

The for conversation hasn't gone public

at the time that you and I recording this,

474

:

but it comes through really strongly

for folks who have listened to it

475

:

that he's just hellbent on

making sure this is super easy.

476

:

He calls it friendly flying,

but just making it make it easy.

477

:

We have to trademark that as well.

478

:

Yeah, yeah.

479

:

You got you got more important things to

to protect.

480

:

Yeah. Let's see. Let's wrap this thing up.

481

:

You've been doing doing this

for I've been in game for a long time.

482

:

If someone, some young pup is coming along

483

:

and getting into LoRaWAN,

what advice might you give them?

484

:

Well, that's a good question.

485

:

And it was probably more

486

:

the generic advice for almost any field,

almost any path you go into.

487

:

Do your homework, take your time to learn,

learn who your customers are,

488

:

learn what your application is.

489

:

It's easy to come in thinking what it is

490

:

and driving aggressively toward a goal

that you have in your head,

491

:

and then find out maybe

it's not the same one your customers have.

492

:

I mean, I think we experienced that

a little bit in this case.

493

:

So so number one, take the time to get

to know your market, your customers.

494

:

You know,

I don't want to be careful about this.

495

:

Don't be afraid to fail

but don't set out to fail.

496

:

A friend of mine, Jeff Rothschild,

I don't know if you know him, Jeff.

497

:

You and I worked together decades ago,

and he went on to found some companies

498

:

and did Veritas among them,

and did very well

499

:

and went on to

he was the adult supervision on a

500

:

a round of funding to Facebook because

he was part of Excel partners at the time.

501

:

And so he had Jeff ends up Zuckerberg

hit it off,

502

:

and Jeff ended up retiring from Facebook.

503

:

A second retiring second time,

this time from Facebook.

504

:

And Jeff will tell you, you know, as

a serial entrepreneur himself, he'll say,

505

:

don't be afraid to fail and fail fast.

506

:

So and I would I pass that advice along

and he's been way more successful.

507

:

Am I have that?

508

:

Don't be afraid to fail, but do your best

509

:

not to to start with and pay attention.

510

:

Be honest with yourself

that this isn't working.

511

:

I'm not achieving these goals.

512

:

Yeah, the sunk costs

don't just keep if I just work harder,

513

:

if I just work longer,

or if I just do more of the same thing,

514

:

that's not working well,

I'm sure that'll work out right.

515

:

So you have to be honest

with yourself on that.

516

:

I thought so, and that's in any business,

you know, it will color

517

:

when we've been successful so far,

we'd like to be a lot more successful.

518

:

And that's exactly the way

we approached it.

519

:

Ripping.

520

:

Well, Dana, I appreciate you taking time

on a Friday afternoon.

521

:

I know you had to clear this

with the higher authority.

522

:

So thank you for,

making time for wrapping.

523

:

She's gone now anyway.

524

:

Yeah. My my pleasure.

525

:

That's it for

this episode of The Business of LoRaWAN.

526

:

If you want to go deeper

and actually deploy devices,

527

:

the MeteoScientific

console is the fastest way to do that.

528

:

And honestly, it's

also the best way to support the show.

529

:

When you use the console, you're not just

listening, you're participating

530

:

in the same real world LoRaWAN work

we talk about here every week.

531

:

You can get started with the free trial

at MeteoScientific.com.

532

:

Huge thanks to the sponsor of this show,

the Helium Foundation,

533

:

for supporting open LoRaWAN

infrastructure worldwide.

534

:

Check them out at Helium.Foundation

and if the show has been useful.

535

:

A quick rating or review on Apple Podcasts

or wherever you listen.

536

:

This really helps

537

:

people find it and helps the show grow

so we can help more people.

538

:

I'm Nik Hawks with Meteo Scientific.

539

:

I'll catch you on the next episode.

All Episodes Previous Episode

About the Podcast

Show artwork for The Business of LoRaWAN
The Business of LoRaWAN
Learn From the Pros

Listen for free

About your host

Profile picture for Nik Hawks

Nik Hawks

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