Episode 49
LoRaWAN In Space - Jon Pearce & Lacuna Space
The episode explores how Lacuna Space uses LoRaWAN over low‑Earth‑orbit satellites to solve the traditional coverage limitations of terrestrial LoRaWAN networks. Jon Pearce explains that Lacuna targets low-power, low-bandwidth IoT use cases where devices send small, infrequent data packets directly from sensor to satellite, trading bandwidth for battery life and global reach.
Jon describes the company’s developer kit and antenna approach, along with typical data profiles such as water metering and environmental monitoring that can tolerate a few uplinks per day.
Pearce also outlines how Lacuna scales its constellation based on capacity and specific customer requirements, including sovereign or national deployments, and how it partners with other satellite operators to embed Lacuna technology on their spacecraft.
Throughout, he contrasts Lacuna’s model with legacy high-bandwidth satellite services and emphasizes the economics of expanding constellations for large, well-defined IoT rollouts like nationwide smart metering.
- 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
Today's guest
2
:on MeteoScientific's
The Business of LoRaWAN is Jon Pearce,
3
:chief commercial officer at Lacuna Space
4
:and one of the early figures
in the LoRaWAN ecosystem.
5
:Jon has been in LoRaWAN
since before the LoRa Alliance was formed,
6
:working at Microchip in the early module
7
:days, then helping scale real world
networks at every net.
8
:In this conversation,
9
:we talk about what it actually takes to
scale LoRaWAN, especially around coverage
10
:and why satellite connectivity changes
that equation.
11
:We dig into what makes a good satellite
LoRaWAN use case, the trade offs
12
:between bandwidth and low power.
13
:How Lacuna onboard developers
with its sensor to satellite kits,
14
:and what constellation scaling
really looks like behind the scenes.
15
:We also explore edge
16
:AI from compressing wildlife camera data
into a single whisper of information
17
:to other AI agents, could one day
become direct customers of connectivity.
18
:This episode is sponsored
by the Helium Foundation
19
:and is dedicated
to spreading knowledge about LoRaWAN.
20
:If you'd like to try Helium’s
publicly available global LoRaWAN for free
21
:and support
the show, sign up at metsci.show/console.
22
:Now let's dig into the
conversation with Jon Pearce.
23
:Jon, thanks
so much for coming on the show.
24
:I'm super excited to have you here.
25
:Thanks. Pleasure to be here.
26
:Yeah.
27
:You've tackled this
how to scale LoRaWAN thing
28
:before a couple times
from microchip to Evernet.
29
:What do you think you'll be able to reuse
from previous experiences?
30
:And what do you think is going to be new
about scaling LoRaWAN with Lacuna?
31
:Well, of course,
the experience teaches you a lot.
32
:I've been around the loop a few times
33
:from the early days with microchip,
when it was all, you know, green shoots.
34
:You know,
we were working out how to do this
35
:and that was really doing it.
36
:My my move to Lacuna was about scale
37
:and scale,
particularly in terms of coverage.
38
:But one of the pain points of LoRaWAN
is how much coverage is out there.
39
:And it's growing. Yeah. It's impressive.
40
:We're all happy with the progress
LoRa once made,
41
:but there's never enough coverage, right?
42
:There's always the edge of a network
43
:where you you run out of steam or run
out of economics to build a network.
44
:That's just generally the case.
45
:I think, with every every deployment
you see around the world.
46
:And what I thought of and Lacuna, which is
just amazing, is just global coverage.
47
:You know, these satellites
are really covering the entire planet.
48
:Pole to pole, everything in between.
49
:So that coverage question has gone away
is that
50
:maybe we jump directly into that.
51
:If someone is considering
using satellite LoRaWAN,
52
:what's a good checklist for what
would make them a good customer for you?
53
:And what is something that they might have
an expectation?
54
:We're like, no, no, that's
that's not going to happen.
55
:You're not going to get you're not going
to get high def, real time
56
:streaming.
57
:Number one in our in our customer
engagement questions is sure.
58
:How are you going to put through this.
59
:Because we do get people say,
well yeah, I've got a gigabyte
60
:a day or video
streaming from CCTV cameras.
61
:We said, no, that's not us.
62
:So it's a low power system, right?
63
:So it's targeting
64
:low power sensors that talk directly
from sensor to satellite actually.
65
:Of course, satellites
always existed. Well, not always.
66
:So you can go back several decades,
like the late 90s when iridium
67
:ability to market commercially available
satellite has been there.
68
:And people can use it
right to stream video.
69
:But the question is,
why would they come to us?
70
:You know, compared to those legacy
satellite companies?
71
:And it is the low power
analogies of low power.
72
:It's low cost.
73
:We are targeting the IoT market as well.
74
:But you have to give something up, you
know, to achieve low power and low cost.
75
:And it's bandwidth 30.
76
:So so our device is really whisper
77
:we use that nine
whisper in our technology. So
78
:these devices are just quietly whispering
away in the field sending data out.
79
:And it's now just tweeting. Right.
80
:So it's limited size packets.
81
:And you just send a few a day
and you go to sleep in between.
82
:And you can live in the field for,
for years on end on a single battery life.
83
:So the classic use case would be water
metering,
84
:you know, which makes a measurement
maybe once every hour
85
:fills out a profile during the day,
86
:and then it syncs it up to the cloud
once a day.
87
:That would be a perfect
use case for satellites.
88
:Okay, so it's not even transmitting once
an hour.
89
:It's just saying, hey,
I'm going to collect all this data
90
:and then I'll blast it out once a day.
91
:Yeah.
I mean, we achieve better once a day.
92
:Something in a region of, you know,
full contacts a day, making more.
93
:It gets better
as you go towards the poles.
94
:The worst case is the equator.
Oh, really? Okay.
95
:But you know that four times a day
gives you some redundancy, right?
96
:So again, the water use case
or any kind of long time series data,
97
:think about environmental sensing of water
quality and rivers in this context.
98
:And you don't need to know. Yeah.
99
:To the millisecond to the minute.
100
:It's a kind of building up a big time
series dataset over a year.
101
:And you want regular stamps once a day,
that kind of thing.
102
:Okay.
103
:Well, maybe it will be instructive
then to think about this.
104
:I've been on this Peco balloon
or a while, since December of:
105
:where the idea is
you put up these really small balloons,
106
:you're not putting up NASA balloons
that have a payload of 8,000 pounds.
107
:These are like 20g,
maybe 30g, mostly under 20.
108
:So just a little PCB, some solar panels,
a bunch of sensors on it,
109
:and the balloons stay up
and these are like weather balloons.
110
:These are standard. Yeah.
111
:And so they're up between let's say
30 to 50,000ft in very general terms,
112
:collecting data
and then sending it back down.
113
:The original idea
I had was through LoRaWAN.
114
:Most of the pico balloons out
there are using some form of HF,
115
:and it's all a bunch of like ham
radio nerds.
116
:So they want to bounce their signals
halfway around the world,
117
:which is really cool,
but not what I'm looking to do.
118
:It sounds like the satellite stuff
would be really good for us
119
:as a potential new customer.
120
:Can you walk me through like
what is the onboarding process look like?
121
:What are the general costs?
122
:Like what
what what I kind of want to know before
123
:I came and talked to you about, hey,
I want to do this right by balloons.
124
:Well, before we get into that,
I mean, let me say before I joined Lacuna,
125
:so I was already in the lower one.
126
:Well, it's like 2014 or something, right?
127
:You've been you've been around the block
at least once. The beginning.
128
:Yes. Is before the lower line
started, right? Yes.
129
:I was there on day
one for lower lines when we formed it.
130
:But yeah, along this journey
I was a product manager.
131
:I was advertising your modules
and things and
132
:I was as guilty as anyone for climbing,
you know, 20 kilometer range.
133
:And maybe it's ten kilometers,
maybe it's five kilometers.
134
:But there was this crazy tech world
between Sigfox and LoRa.
135
:Where. Yeah, it's
LoRa at 15, Sigfox at 20.
136
:And then someone else
went back and said, 22.
137
:And yeah, it gets crazy. Sure.
138
:This kind of thing.
139
:Yeah, it's terrible.
140
:But along the way, I remember seeing posts
on social media, on LinkedIn and things
141
:like that of people climbing 100km, 200km,
even up to,
142
:I think 700km might be some number I saw.
143
:I remember it.
144
:So I'm thinking, well,
these are just crazy people. Yeah.
145
:And they were using WebGL
and that's what made me think of this.
146
:Little did
I know, those were the founders of Lacuna.
147
:I ended up working with
148
:proving the satellite technology
by using high altitude balloons
149
:before they could move to satellite, so
that was an important step in the journey.
150
:So I like I like the fact that you're
playing with high altitude balloons.
151
:But moving on to what you asked
152
:about how you get on board
it, it's a new technology Lacuna really
153
:was the first to come up with the idea of
can you stretch LoRaWAN all the way
154
:as far as satellites and all satellites,
by the way, between 5 and 600km altitude?
155
:Oh, watch,
because it's there at an angle years,
156
:1000km easily,
just not directly above you.
157
:And that's a new technology, right?
No one imagined that was possible.
158
:So Lacuna had to develop our own hardware,
our devices to make that work.
159
:So day one with any customers,
normally we say come buy a device.
160
:And this is I'm hoping that's a camera,
a generic multi-node as we call this.
161
:This is it's
got multitude of sensors on there.
162
:And it's a it's a sensor to satellites
develop developer kit.
163
:Essentially
it runs at Twitter and it's certified.
164
:So it could be used in small deployments.
165
:But the key point of this is
is the antenna,
166
:which is a little bit larger
than the typical monopole.
167
:So you'll see another one device. Yes.
168
:This is a circular polarized
upward pointing antenna.
169
:So it sits this this way around
pointing out.
170
:And I mean it's not unique to Lacuna
171
:I mean you could build your own antennas
and there's different styles of antennas,
172
:ceramic packages and so on.
173
:But this is our known good antenna.
174
:So whenever we get a new inquiry
they want as well
175
:get a known good device
before you try to build your own device.
176
:And then at least you can have a good
comparison on the table, a nice reference
177
:and that thing that you're holding up
178
:for, folks that are listening,
I don't know,
179
:I call that the size of two packs of cards
side by side.
180
:I call this a beer mat all day long.
181
:I keep telling
people it's the size of beer mats.
182
:They think beer mat? Yeah,
183
:as a beer
mat, the thickness of a fat man's dumb.
184
:Which I don't think
you can say that anymore, but there it is.
185
:So that's the first step. Is
I one of those. It's a kit.
186
:So it comes with everything you need.
What does it run?
187
:What's the cost on that?
188
:3993 99 pounds or dollars, I get told off
as I know we're all the same these days.
189
:Aren't €9 pounds dollars?
190
:Yeah. Okay,
so it says somewhere there isn't a 400.
191
:Whatever your unit,
this is three, nine, 9 pounds.
192
:Actually, it's what we sell it.
193
:And is that come with kind of coverage
for a year or is how does it work.
194
:Yeah.
195
:So it's not really the hardware cost
to us.
196
:The package cost because this is
the platform access connectivity for.
197
:Yeah, some support on boarding support.
198
:And of course the hardware is built in.
199
:So yeah, I don't want to
200
:I don't want people to think
that the hardware costs three, nine, nine.
201
:The hardware is a smaller portion
I guess you up and running.
202
:And I said it runs Arduino.
203
:It's easy to get inside,
you know, change behavior if you want to.
204
:I mean, it's that it runs out of the box
with just a few parameters
205
:you need to set up,
but you can't change the functionality.
206
:You can't even add sensors.
207
:We have expansion kits
where you can plug in Grove connectors or
208
:XP sensors and things like this.
209
:Okay, yeah, maybe we maybe we have to get
some for the met side project.
210
:Yeah, certainly
something that we're we're considering.
211
:Let's see. You had said you
212
:had thought about if a customer is coming
and saying, like, hey, you're
213
:probably gonna get about four general
uplinks per day is that that's right.
214
:Okay. Yep.
215
:So how do you scale that?
How do you get to a place where.
216
:And maybe this is an interoperability
question
217
:with other constellation operators.
218
:Like how does that work.
219
:Or if someone wants more
or other companies come to you and say,
220
:hey, we want to we see what you've done
in this space, we want to work with you.
221
:How does it work?
222
:First of all,
there's a kind of gate, right?
223
:So if someone says,
I need every ten minutes, we know it's
224
:probably not the technology for you today
as it stands today.
225
:And we are cherry picking those use cases
that sit within the profile.
226
:As I said, you
what metering asset tracking.
227
:But actually that doesn't discount
all the cases where if
228
:if we set, you know, measurements
every hour delivery day.
229
:But people said,
well I really need measurements
230
:every 30 minutes and delivered
every three hours or something.
231
:We can scale to constellation to do that.
232
:We just need the business
justification actually.
233
:So it's really important
that we talk to people
234
:and find out what the demands are,
what scale.
235
:And I see an interesting avenue
236
:within the space
sector is, is a kind of technology.
237
:It is naturally global.
238
:Of course, these new satellites
239
:go around the whole world,
but every nation wants its sovereign
240
:capability as well,
or has some preference to tap sovereignty.
241
:We all want to own our stuff,
I get it. Yeah, yeah.
242
:And actually this
this is a conversation that comes up a lot
243
:where we say, let's talk about the use
case, whatever it may be.
244
:Let's understand the parameters
and let's quote you for what it is
245
:to put you all to expand the constellation
to suit that use case.
246
:And actually, actually,
people are often quite surprised
247
:how economically
we can grow a constellation.
248
:It doesn't take a massive justification
to do it.
249
:You know,
the kind of the expansive use cases.
250
:If you think about nationwide automation,
for example, in the UK, 20
251
:million households, you probably
all of them will have a smart meter soon.
252
:Yeah, 20
253
:million units in a country
and a well understood use case.
254
:You scale that in other countries as well.
255
:All of a sudden you can see this
to some revenue flow here.
256
:And we could build out a larger
constellation to suit a use case.
257
:Sure. Easily.
258
:And you know,
surprisingly economically as well.
259
:So that's one of the things
we're offering right now as we look to
260
:build the core of constellation.
261
:We do operate our own satellites.
262
:We do provide a service, and we continue
to do that as the core of our business.
263
:We scale that on our own time,
264
:right as as we need to based on capacity
loading of the satellites.
265
:So the the driver is not so much
as you add more satellites, by the way.
266
:You reduce this latency
because you have more contacts per day.
267
:Okay. Right.
268
:So one of
269
:one of the dimensions is you might add
more satellites to get towards real time.
270
:But for us
actually it's more about capacity
271
:as our satellites are loaded
and consume all the capacity.
272
:That's
when we justify adding more satellites.
273
:So that will always continue,
will always be the core of the network.
274
:But we have got a few partners
that we've onboarded
275
:where we've put our technology
onto their satellites.
276
:One is only space in the US.
277
:They operate off a Meo satellite
and they use our technology that
278
:another one is RDS Telecom in Portugal.
279
:We have others
that are not necessarily announced,
280
:but these countries
might need to add a few satellites.
281
:You know, they might have the budget
282
:to to add a few satellites
to the constellation.
283
:A few satellites on their own
would just be, you know,
284
:another separate constellation
with limited number of contacts. And
285
:by working together, of course,
we can all contribute
286
:so that countries satellites,
when they're away
287
:from the country,
we can use the capacity and vice versa.
288
:When our satellites are over
that territory,
289
:we can add to that capacity
and do a a collaborative trade.
290
:And is it that easy
or are there hardware restrictions?
291
:We're like, oh, well,
you didn't put a gateway in this thing.
292
:So like obviously can't can't use it.
293
:I'm not going to say he's okay.
294
:Essentially it is us putting a gateway
on other people's satellites.
295
:Yeah, we call it in the space sector.
296
:You call it a payload.
297
:Okay. Box.
298
:In LoRaWAN terms, that would be
the gateway on the satellite.
299
:I'll try to get hip to the space
terminology,
300
:because it is interesting to me separately
and just for my own curiosity, like,
301
:how big are these things
that you're checking in a space,
302
:is this like, I can't imagine
it's the size of a refrigerator.
303
:Is it is like a toaster oven.
What are these things like?
304
:Like, I,
305
:I often travel with one in my backpack
to trade shows and things
306
:and actually say, this is a satellite.
307
:So, our past satellites have been shoebox
sized.
308
:So in satellites,
you have this concept of CubeSats
309
:and a cube ten by ten by ten centimeters.
310
:And are satellites are six you six cubes.
311
:Okay.
312
:That tells you it's 30cm
by 20cm by ten centimeters.
313
:That's the shoebox.
314
:Yeah.
315
:Size it happens to be not kind of a three
by two layer
316
:on newer satellites that
I've just been watching this last year
317
:are for use a little bit smaller,
and and a four by one configuration.
318
:So 40cm by ten by ten.
319
:It's just amazing how small these things.
320
:I always think of it as like,
oh, it's got to be some giant thing.
321
:Like, nope, it's
just a couple of Rubik's cubes up there.
322
:That's it.
323
:We've seen those vehicle busses
or chassis are part of it.
324
:The the LoRaWAN gateway
portion of it is about one to you.
325
:So it's one of those cubes
is the gateway okay.
326
:And then of course batteries and onboard
computers and gyro systems in the,
327
:in the rest of the chassis.
328
:Yeah. It's so rad.
329
:Now does it only work?
330
:I saw that on the website that was built
from the, from the beginning
331
:to be, to have interoperability
with TR with the things industries.
332
:Can I use it with any LoRaWAN?
333
:If I'm using helium, can I say, oh, I'm
just going to roam on your guys's network?
334
:Or is it?
335
:I'm assuming it's more difficult
than that.
336
:Actually, it was built to be generic
and interface to any of network servers.
337
:We happen to work very closely
with the things industries because
338
:we're friends with them.
339
:We like them.
340
:Yeah, because they're awesome
and they're everywhere.
341
:Yeah.
342
:In fact, one of our founders, Thomas,
343
:you know, did work with the things
industries in the US.
344
:And I worked closely
with things industries in the US.
345
:So there are default go to.
346
:Yeah, I think it's a great to work
with, easy to work with
347
:and with the things network.
348
:Remember
they've got the professional tier tier
349
:and then network which is the community
based one that's free access.
350
:Right.
351
:So in our default starter kit,
the default startup has been
352
:just routed to the things network,
where we just set up a free account
353
:for the user.
354
:Get the data through the packet broker.
355
:Let's get familiar with that.
356
:And they're not going away straight away.
357
:But that's
because they're just so easy to work with.
358
:But we sure we have integrations
with all the others activity that more
359
:up stack laureate.
360
:Yeah.
361
:So we could either make our system
look like a very, very large gateway
362
:globalized gateway.
363
:Just pump data in.
364
:That's the simple integration.
365
:But the full integration
is actually using LoRaWAN backend
366
:interfaces or roaming interfaces,
which are now standardized.
367
:Okay.
368
:And then I guess the
369
:obvious question that I missed
because I'm not a super hardcore
370
:technologist is if I'm building
these water meters or sensors,
371
:I'm going to need the antenna
that you had showed me before.
372
:I can't just use a regular 915 kind
of straight monopole I have to use this
373
:helical was a circularly
polarized is what you said.
374
:Sorry. Also happens to be right
hand circular polarized.
375
:So it's an RCT okay.
376
:Now you don't have to
but it's advantageous.
377
:So the reason for that is the orientation
between the device on the ground
378
:and the satellite.
379
:Yeah.
You don't know what relative orientation.
380
:So in terrestrial systems
381
:you always have vertical
horizontal polarization on these antennas.
382
:We satellite circular makes sense.
383
:So that's a kind of generic reason
for that.
384
:And it gives you a certain amount of gain
385
:in the budget
chirping correct polarization.
386
:Or maybe I should better say
if you're incorrect, polarization
387
:will still work, but you might drop,
I think, three DBS.
388
:Okay, so you could use a standard
monopole linear polarization,
389
:but you'd be disadvantaged
when I got three DBS to do it.
390
:Got it.
And you said these things are or is it
391
:50 or 60 came up or is it 500, 600?
392
:Sorry. A 500 and 600km high. Okay.
393
:So you're going to need every, every
little piece you can get to get out that.
394
:Yeah. Yeah.
395
:Actually I mentioned Omni space
with a Meo satellite.
396
:Ameo satellite is a 10,000km.
397
:You also got 10,000km
to that satellite as well.
398
:But that's a huge satellite.
399
:More like the size of a bus, okay.
400
:With much larger antennas.
401
:And then again, it's got bigger ears.
402
:Yeah, yeah. Okay.
403
:Super cool.
404
:Well, in 2026, February of 2026,
when we're recording this,
405
:I is pretty darn hot.
406
:I should round this out
with two questions.
407
:Are you guys using AI at all
at Lacuna Space?
408
:Is that something
that you guys are integrating?
409
:Or you're like,
I don't know about this thing.
410
:Let's let's hold off on for a bit.
411
:I mean, we use AI plenty
within the company for all sorts of tasks.
412
:I would say relative to technology, AI at
the edge is very important.
413
:So in these edge devices,
as I said, it's a whisper.
414
:They only have a whisper or like a
tweet of data that you can get back.
415
:It's it's limited in bandwidth
and it's plenty of use cases where
416
:you want to get as much value from that,
as much information through there
417
:as you can.
418
:A great example, I'm going to say
something about camera based systems.
419
:I started by saying
we can't stream video from CCTV,
420
:but I do have customers
and young developments with camera
421
:based sensors that might be trained
on monitoring wildlife, for example.
422
:Yeah. Okay.
423
:I saw an elephant
or there's two deer or whatever.
424
:Yeah, yeah.
425
:Or does insects, pests in a crop, things
like this.
426
:Right.
427
:So you can have the heavyweight
processing at the edge
428
:doing all the number crunching. Yeah.
429
:And then the answer might be the student.
430
:Yeah. Is that the number two.
431
:Right. Yeah.
432
:In terms of compression
that's just phenomenal. That's amazing.
433
:So you have to send streams of video.
434
:You just send the answer.
435
:And we got
we got loads of examples of that.
436
:Whether it's audio listening to bird
calls, counting penguins.
437
:Gotta keep an eye on those penguins,
wildfires or glacier movements,
438
:those kind of things
that AI is a huge advantage on.
439
:It's super cool.
440
:I think the the penultimate question,
second to last, is
441
:I've got this hypothesis
with AI coming on that
442
:AI agents are going to be this totally
an entirely new market segment.
443
:I think of it as like data
444
:AI director AI, where these agents
are going to be interested in information.
445
:Do you see a path where AI agents
446
:become customers
of of connectivity directly?
447
:So they're going to be auto provisioning
devices, buying capacity, managing fleets?
448
:Or is that like, dude,
449
:it's so far out, we're not going to bother
thinking about that yet.
450
:That's a really interesting question.
451
:I, I would hope it would move that way.
452
:I would hope it does.
453
:But I say that on the basis I
454
:have this kind of
455
:theory or, you know,
shower thoughts about IoT. Yep.
456
:Yeah. IoT. We. Yeah. I've been in it.
457
:Yeah.
458
:Well, ten years in law,
I'm 20 before that as well.
459
:Sure.
460
:It was the big thing right
where it's all going
461
:to make us all millionaires,
right? Overnight.
462
:And it's proven to be quite slow to build.
463
:Yeah.
464
:And I've often thought about this, the
transformational nature of the internet.
465
:I'm old enough to go back
pre-internet, right.
466
:Yeah.
467
:To the early days where you had
a shared phone in your house,
468
:a lot of mobile phone.
469
:You had correspondence, you know,
pen pals, you know, write letters to.
470
:Yeah, it's kind of
471
:and I think
about the amazing transformation
472
:where everything is aggregated
onto the internet, you know, commerce
473
:and communications and everything,
and how that might translate to IoT.
474
:And I love the fact it I,
475
:I mean, in my personal interest,
I like motorbikes, right?
476
:A random guy in Japan
477
:with a similar motorbike to mine
and strike up a conversation with him,
478
:but he's speaking Japanese, I'm
speaking English and we get along fine.
479
:And you just think about the discovery,
how we found each other,
480
:and then we had the interoperability
to be able to talk to each other.
481
:I think that's missing from IoT.
482
:We don't really have the ability to find
a sensor on a glacier in Greenland, right?
483
:Yeah. I just I don't know, quite the data.
484
:We have to go and put a sensor
on glacier in Greenland.
485
:So we don't have that broad
discoverability or sharing of data
486
:or just discovery of interesting things
within IoT.
487
:It's very vertically siloed right now.
488
:And I think for it to really take off
and go exponential,
489
:we need that kind of network effect.
490
:Actually, there's a law for that. Isn't
that macro slow?
491
:In fact, the value of network
is proportional to the number of devices
492
:squared or something. Yeah. Yeah.
493
:There's there's always some exponents
in there. Yep.
494
:And the question is why
that hasn't kicked in an IoT.
495
:And I think it's because
we keep everything in vertical silos.
496
:My sensor totally by cloud. Yeah.
497
:My application.
498
:So what you say about these agents
AI agents
499
:and their ability to find data sources.
500
:It's bad.
501
:I can believe it.
502
:I think that
that would make a huge difference.
503
:I think I would
then start to worry about validating
504
:all the credibility of the data.
505
:It's got to be authenticated somehow,
rather than just being random noise.
506
:Yeah, but if we could get a
507
:it would be amazing.
508
:It is.
509
:Well, I mean, I think that
as soon as I came on and became
510
:a real thing that people understood,
that was outside of academia.
511
:I think
512
:one of the first reactions in the IoT
world was like, oh my God, this is IoT,
513
:is the nervous system for AI.
514
:Like, clearly we've got all these sensors
collecting all this data.
515
:They're they're going to want this thing.
516
:And I haven't seen it yet
where that's taken off,
517
:although I am seeing it's
kind of blossoming and,
518
:and blooming
in a bunch of different sectors
519
:where everyone I talked
to says our we're using it.
520
:And so I think we're maybe 1 or 2
steps away
521
:from what you're talking about,
where you say like, hey, I,
522
:I want to see what the conditions are
in Greenland.
523
:Go find me anywhere on any network,
what those are, and they'll pay for that.
524
:Yeah.
525
:I mean, it's a real cost
to deploying hardware.
526
:Yes. Right.
527
:So deploy wants to make value from it
and so keeps it private.
528
:Of course,
there's lots of open data initiatives.
529
:I think as I said, I just
I hope that comes across thing.
530
:That would be powerful.
531
:I can't see how it won't be
the next Uber style thing
532
:where instead of driving a car,
you go deploy sensors for AI.
533
:That seems like that's that's
what's going to happen.
534
:I would be remiss someone will ask me
about your your motorbike stuff.
535
:What what are you into? Is this, like,
Iron Man stuff?
536
:What if someone wanted
to send you a free motorbike?
537
:What would they send you?
538
:Yeah, please do send me.
539
:You know spike. Well, I'm a bit of bias.
540
:I've sapping building a bike, which is,
a kind of homage to an Isle of Man
541
:TT racer.
542
:Okay. The style is cool. Is Saxon.
543
:Saxon triumph. Sickly.
544
:And I knew the guy at Run
Saxon, Nigel Hill.
545
:And he said he'd given up on building
chassis.
546
:You know, there's no there's
no money in it. I'm never do it again.
547
:And I persuaded him to build me
his last chassis before he retired.
548
:But go say that started
when my daughter was born
549
:and was just teaching my daughter
to drive now.
550
:So that gives you
an indication of her age.
551
:And that chassis still in my shed
could have built.
552
:I think it would be my retirement project.
553
:Maybe it's
nice to have a slow burn project.
554
:And are you?
555
:I'm assuming you're to put
some LoRaWAN devices on it somewhere,
556
:just as like general to do, right?
557
:Yeah, yeah.
558
:Let's see if there's any fuel in
fuel tank.
559
:Okay. Ripping. Well, Jon,
thanks for carving out time.
560
:I know you guys are super busy at Lacuna
and ready to talk to you.
561
:Learn a little bit about what you're doing. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks very.
562
:That's it for
this episode of The Business of LoRaWAN.
563
:If you want to go deeper
and actually deploy devices,
564
:the MeteoScientific
Console is the fastest way to do that.
565
:And honestly, it's
also the best way to support the show.
566
:When you use the console, you're not just
listening, you're participating
567
:in the same real world LoRaWAN work
we talk about here every week.
568
:You can get started with the free trial
at Meteoscientific.com.
569
:Huge thanks to the sponsor of this show,
the Helium Foundation,
570
:for supporting open LoRaWAN
infrastructure worldwide.
571
:Check them out at Helium.Foundation
and if the show has been useful.
572
:A quick rating or review on Apple Podcasts
or wherever you listen.
573
:This really helps
574
:people find it and helps the show grow
so we can help more people.
575
:I'm Nik Hawks with MeteoScientific.
576
:I'll catch you on the next episode.
