LoRa, Drones, and Offline Tracking - Tomi Piriyev

Speaker: 00:00:08

Today's

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: 00:00:08

guest on MeteoScientific's

The Business of LoRaWAN show

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: 00:00:11

is Tomi Piriyev, an embedded

engineer and founder of NoLi Lab,

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who's carved out a fascinating niche

at the edge of LoRa and IoT.

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Tomi's

background started in the drone world,

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where he was building UAVs

for agricultural mapping.

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When the off the shelf telemetry

and tracking modules failed to perform.

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Too bulky to power hungry, too unreliable.

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He began developing his own.

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That journey led him to LoRa

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and eventually to the creation

of the Loko, L-O-K-O, a tiny off grid

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GPS tracker designed for drones, farms,

forests, and even skydiving missions.

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Loko is not a LoRaWAN device,

at least not by default.

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It uses peer to peer LoRa to transmit

GPS data from its air unit,

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a fingertip size

beacon, to a personal ground receiver,

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which in turn talks to your phone over

Bluetooth.

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Everything works offline

with OpenStreetMap for navigation.

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No SIM, no subscription, no monthly fees.

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But what makes this conversation

special isn't just the tech,

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it's the design philosophy.

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Tomi's focused on building

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ultra low power, high

performance tools that just work anywhere.

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And despite the Silicon Valley temptation,

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the lab remains bootstrapped,

open source and customer first.

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Let's dig in.

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Tomi,

thanks so much for coming on the show.

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Thank you for having me, Nik. I'm pumped.

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It's super cool you're in the LoRa,

but not in LoRaWAN, at least, not yet.

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And you're doing this tracking thing.

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But before we get into local

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and NoLi labs,

tell me what you were doing before that.

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What brought you here?

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Yeah, before NoLi Lab,

I had a small company.

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Drone company.

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And we were manufacturing small drones

for the agriculture purposes.

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So we were going into the field

and scanning the field and getting data.

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And during that time, we were using

some telemetry modules in the drones.

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And we found that they're not reliable

and they're using high energy

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and they're bulky and also the cost.

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And we started to develop

our own telemetry modules

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and that's how I met the LoRa.

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And we tested a bunch of radio devices.

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And then we tested LoRa.

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And we found that the LoRa is very long

range and very low power

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and also tested effective.

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And then we developed our own telemetry

module specifically for the drones.

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And then once

when we were showing our adjusted,

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our customers and customers

asked, can you put the G.P.S.

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device on a drone in case

if something happens?

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So we are carrying expensive cameras

so we can find it?

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I said, sure,

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and I find that I searched on the internet

and there are a bunch of G.P.S.

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trackers in the market.

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So I bought one of them and attached,

and they used a SIM card,

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and I attached SIM card and said,

everything.

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Everything works fine.

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I went to the field and fly,

and then I checked my cell phone, and

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there's no network. And then.

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And then I searched the internet.

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Is there any offline G.P.S. trackers?

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And surprisingly,

there are the very few of them.

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And they are very DIY

and that there are also beacons.

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And I find that beacons

like transmitting the signal

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and with the receiver, it's

finding where the signals come from.

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And I attached this one to the drone

and went to the field and flew.

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Tried it, but it is very hard to use.

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It's not really for the consumers.

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And then how I started to make it,

or find G.P.S.

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trackers

where people can use in rural areas

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and they can easily

find on the map where the devices.

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And that's how you got here. Okay.

So yeah.

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And what we're talking about now with loco

and with Noli Labs is a device.

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It's a basically two piece set

or like a one piece ground unit.

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And then up to

what is it, 30 air tags or air units.

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Yes. Locker.

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Is it two devices?

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One of them is receiver

and one of them is transmitter.

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And it doesn't work other way around.

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So it is just that simple software.

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One of them just only transmit

and the other one only receives.

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And also you can connect multiple

of transmitter to a single receiver.

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So if you set the same pairing idea

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with the ground

so they will pair with the same brand unit

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and it will show on that locker

app on the smartphone and the ground unit.

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Transmit the data to the smartphone via

Bluetooth and it shows on then offline.

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Application is also offline

because many maps like Apple Map

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or the Google Map,

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they are not offline, they have offline,

but they don't provide API.

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So in our application

we cannot use Google or Apple Maps.

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So we integrated OpenStreetMap

which is user

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can download it in advance

and it's stored on the form.

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How even there is no network in the phone.

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In lock application

you can open the map and locate it.

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Devices are located.

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Got it.

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So you're basically,

if I'm getting this right,

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you're adding more or less a LoRa radio

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to your phone is the kind of clunky way

for me to think about it.

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And that is receiving.

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And then on the other end

are the air units, which are the local,

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the little red balls

that we've seen with the antenna.

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And those are about the size of your

fingertip, and those are transmitting.

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So those transmit the ground unit

that's basically attached to your phone.

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Although I think about Bluetooth

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is receiving

and everything is happening offline.

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So if you even if you don't have internet

connectivity,

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you basically have

this radio connected to your phone

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that will provide coverage

for anything that the ground unit can see.

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Am I getting that generally right?

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Yes it's correct. Okay. Super cool.

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And I think the stuff that stood out is,

a you're a super nerd, which is awesome.

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The fact that you kind of built this thing

to work and with a mix of off the shelf

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hardware, which allowed you to really go

past the kind of certification

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and the huge pain in the butt

that all that stuff is using, though.

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Is it the WIO five? Yes, yes, WIO five.

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It is not actually the main reason

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that we used it for the certification

WIO five actually,

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because when I started this project,

it was right after the Covid

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and the that there was a shortage

of that microcontrollers

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and Seeed have the contract with STM

and they don't have this kind of issue.

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So if I use that WIO chip

and then I don't have to worry about that

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chip shortage, you know, that's

it's super, super smart what you've done.

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And then I thought the other thing

that was really cool

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was that the Air unit,

which is receiving G.P.S.

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signals and then transmitting them,

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and it's just receiving

from multiple constellations.

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So in the GNSS world,

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most of us think about kind of GPS

just being the thing, at least in the US.

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But there are multiple constellations

in the sky run by different countries

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that are doing the same kind of GPS

or Gnss technology.

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And what you've done is say, hey,

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this Air unit can listen to anything,

whether it's Glonass

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or the American system or the Chinese

system, which is BeiDou. Right?

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I think it can listen to a couple of them.

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Yes, it can listen to BeiDou, Glonass

and another one, the Russian one.

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Yeah. Yeah.

It's on the tip of my tongue as well.

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GNSS is like my second thing,

the second language after LoRaWAN.

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Okay. Super cool.

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So one of the things I've seen

in this world of LoRa and LoRaWAN is

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and we're seeing this happen in Meshtastic

right now, is once

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kind of the average consumer,

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although all of them are a little bit

nerdy just to be using it

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once they discover LoRa, they're like,

oh, cool, can I put this onto a LoRaWAN?

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Can I start having it

so that if I've got these Air units out,

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can I have, for example, Helium

as a community network or whatever

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it is, whether it's Netmore or other

or any of the PNOs out there.

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Can I also have them

listen for these signals?

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And I know the first answer is always no,

that's not how it works.

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But on the roadmap going forward,

do you think that's going to be something

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where you're like, hey, these LoRaWAN

networks or these LoRaWANs are out there,

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we might as well see if we can use them

to listen for signals.

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I can answer as it is already done.

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It's already in the firmware.

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I'll go look at it.

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So you can set to connect to LoRaWAN.

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Because many customers

from their countries,

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like the United States or Norway

or Germany,

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they have already established

their gateways.

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Super cool. Okay.

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So you can do that right off. Great.

So the answer is not no, I was wrong.

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That's always good to be wrong

about something being better.

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Now I always listen to customers.

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Yeah.

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That's

that is something that comes through in

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all of these episodes is that you really

have to you're designing for the customer.

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So that's actually nice.

Question is who are the customers?

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Like who did you originally design

this for some like Lost drone or,

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you know, losing drone operators.

But who else will use this thing?

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The customers are mainly from the farming

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and they want to track the people

and the farms equipment in the farms.

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Before I was living in Ukraine,

so there was very big farms

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and the big farming companies,

they want to check every equipment

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where they are located,

where the people are,

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or also they are optimizing their routes

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in the farms by checking device.

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And how often is the Loko transmitting?

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Is it every couple

seconds, every couple minutes.

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Now it depends.

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Transmit interval the user can set.

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So okay then first time you bought

you'd have to set the transmit interval.

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So you can transmit every 30s or 60s.

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And it also affects the battery life

of course.

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Yeah.

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Yeah maybe I have seen on other websites

so it can go up to a year.

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But it depends on the transmit interval.

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If you make shorter intervals

so it can be up there. You.

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Yeah. Yeah.

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So if it's transmitting every hour

no problem.

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If it's transmitting every 30s

I'm guessing it's not going to last quite

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that long. Yeah.

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Correct.

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Okay.

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So drones farms who else is using this.

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I have very diverse customers.

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So from the United States I have customers

they are using.

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They have sensors in the forests

and the scientists.

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And they also have

the LoRaWAN network in the area.

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They are putting local on this sensors.

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So next time when they go there they can

find the location is oh interesting.

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Okay.

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So it makes it much easier

to find the second time.

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And I've had problems with that

where you put something out

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and you're like,

there's no way I'll forget where this is.

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And then you go back there six months

later, you're like, what was it?

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That rock outcropping

or that rock outcropping?

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So I can see that

being super useful. Exactly.

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And also have one of the clients

use them for skydiving

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and they also connect to the lower one.

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And oh, and also for the search

and rescue attempts we are currently

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I'm talking with the search

and rescue team from Nevada.

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They're integrating to their map system

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and to track their drones

for the search and rescue purposes.

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Okay. Oh super cool.

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Now is it

something where it can switch back

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and forth

between sending to the ground unit

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and sending to a LoRaWAN,

or it sends to both?

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Or do you have to make the choice like,

hey, this time that I send it out,

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you have to set in advance to work

with the LoRaWAN or the a peer to peer.

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Okay, super cool dude.

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And then talk to me

about the business side of this.

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I know this is open source,

so you kind of give away like,

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hey, this is the side to do it

if you want to do it yourself.

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But there's plenty of people out there

who don't want to do it.

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What is the business side of Noli Labs

look like?

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You just making money

selling these things.

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Is there an ongoing subscription?

What does that look like?

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Not that

there will not be any subscription.

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So just net

from the start of the beginning.

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So we will not have any subscription

or additional fee.

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Everything will be cleared, an open source

and we are just making money from there

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selling the hard.

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Okay, cool.

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I'm sure the Silicon Valley folks are

like, no, you've got to do a subscription.

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But it's super cool to think about

the ability to use technology to say,

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hey, I buy this once I lock in my price,

and then I can track anything, anywhere,

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any time with my own private network

or with the LoRaWAN.

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Everything, including the phone

application, smart phone application

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server and all the configuration.

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Everything is open source,

so you can find GitHub.

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It's super cool what you've done.

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Okay, so and clearly understand

how to make things really low power.

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What do you think is next for Noli labs?

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Are you or are you going to come out

with other products?

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Are you going to continue using LoRa

for these things?

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What's the next year or two look like?

Right now we are testing the market.

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What the people want,

how do they are working with the Loko

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And so we have to make it waterproof

because right now Loko is not waterproof.

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It is one of our biggest disadvantages

we can say.

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But this is because of the

we have low production volume,

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so we have to make it small

for the plastics.

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So right now we are using the 3D

printed high quality 3D printed cases.

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And when they increase the batch.

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So we will make it waterproof.

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So this is one of our biggest

disadvantages.

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Got it.

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Okay.

So the next move is just to make this

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thing waterproof

and go to higher production.

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And then I guess

the obvious question there is

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are you going to pull in investors

for that,

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or are you just going to take a bunch of

preorders. Are you going to fund that?

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Now? We are not looking for investors

and we are just selling the device.

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And you're going to do yourself

good for you guys.

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There are many applications.

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We believe there are many applications

for offline tracking.

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So we have quite good product I think.

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So just we just need to get the feedbacks

from the users and how do they use it.

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And make the Loko even better for them.

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Super super cool.

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Tomi, I know you're ultra busy.

Thanks ton for coming on.

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And as a founder,

like there's always something to do.

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So I appreciate you making the time

and talking about

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how you're using LoRa and LoRaWANS

to build a business.

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Thanks, man.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

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That's it

for this episode of The Business of Laura.

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