Episode 26

Practical & Economical: LoRaWAN with Henry Huang

Henry Huang, CEO of Browan Communications, talks about Browan’s cost-effective, hybrid IoT strategies and real-world applications in Indoor positioning, Asset tracking, and IoT in Hospitals.

  • Leverages existing Wi-Fi APs and LoRaWAN gateways to deliver Indoor positioning and Asset tracking while keeping customer costs down
  • Demonstrates practical IoT in Hospitals with LoRaWAN-enabled mobile nursing station trackers integrated into hospital Wi-Fi environments
  • Uses heat maps generated from Wi-Fi signals combined with LoRaWAN backhaul to enable zone-level Indoor positioning in semiconductor plants and airports
  • Outlines precision tiers (±20 cm to ±50 m) to balance accuracy requirements with investment, ensuring solutions remain economical
  • Shows how adding gateways improves coverage and feeds dynamic heat maps, allowing scalable expansion of Indoor positioning networks
  • Emphasizes hybrid technology—combining LoRaWAN, Wi-Fi, UWB, Bluetooth, and Zigbee—to address diverse enterprise use cases and maximize ROI

Henry on LinkedIn

Browan

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Transcript
Speaker:

Today's guest on MeteoScientific's

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The Business of LoRaWAN is Henry Huang,

CEO of Browan Communications.

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Henry brings over two decades of wireless

communications leadership, from Wi-Fi

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and LTE at Gemtek to pioneering

LoRaWAN device manufacturing at Browan.

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As a member of the LoRa Alliance board,

he guides both product innovation

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and industry

standards across global markets.

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In today's conversation, Henry outlines

Browan's hybrid tracking approach,

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leveraging existing Wi-Fi access points

to generate signal heat maps,

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then using LoRaWAN as a low power backhaul

to report

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zone level positions

for assets and personnel.

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You'll hear how this solution is live

in a Taiwanese semiconductor plant

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for visitor zoning in a major Southeast

Asian airport for tracking buggies

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and wheelchairs,

and in a Thai hospital to locate shared

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nursing stations

without disrupting daily operations.

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He also dives into the precision tiers

ranging from +/- 20cm for high accuracy

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use cases to +/ 50m for broader zone

constraints, and explains how Browan's

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AI driven management platform

dynamically integrates new access points

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into its heatmaps for organic coverage

expansion.

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Henry's dual technical and business

background, from an electrical engineering

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degree in Taiwan to an MBA in Baltimore,

equips him to deliver brutally efficient

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insights on deploying and scaling

LoRaWAN in real world environments.

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Whether you're an executive assessing ROI,

an engineer

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designing IoT networks, or a hobbyist

exploring hybrid connectivity,

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this episode delivers

actionable expertise.

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This episode is sponsored by the Helium

Foundation's IoT Working Group.

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Helium offers global LoRaWAN coverage

and is used by everyone

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from hobbyists to businesses

deploying countrywide networks.

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If you'd like to see if Helium

coverage exists near you,

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check out the links in the show notes

to get started using Helium today.

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You can sign up for a console account

with Medio Scientific

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at console dot medio scientific.com.

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Now let's dig into the conversation

with Henry Hwang.

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Henry,

thanks so much for coming on the show.

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Thank you for having me to your show.

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Thank you very much.

I'm really excited to have you on.

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I saw your presentation in Barcelona

and you talked about what you're doing

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in LoRaWAN.

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I thought we'd start with the focus

that Browan has on tracking,

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and I thought we'd actually start

at the very beginning

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with how you're using their current Wi-Fi

apps to basically get your foot

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in the door and say, we'll use your Wi-Fi,

and then you introduce LoRaWAN.

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Can you walk me through

how you're doing that? Yeah.

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So actually, as you know,

Browan is the solution provider.

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So as we were developing

a lot of different products

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for customers,

we found that tracking is specifically,

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in interest of different,

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kind of assets

tracking and different scenario.

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So and more and more

so we found that there's no one

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simple technology

that could address everything

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because there is different

level of precision,

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different level of range coverage

and so on.

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And also investment related.

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Many of our customers wanted to leverage

whatever has been installed there

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and then provide

a level of asset tracking.

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So we came up with an idea of using

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the existing Wi-Fi system

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and then having the,

developing the heat map,

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which is the signal heatmap of the Wi-Fi,

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and then having a LoRa device

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to further send out the location

when the Wi-Fi device

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from two different access points

and the location is sent back

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to, LoRa as a means of the access,

tracking, or person

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tracking in a specific environment

that already has Wi-Fi.

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So it's a combination of Wi-Fi

that is already there, plus the LoRaWAN

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as a backhaul to send back the data,

of the position of the specific assets.

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It was a super cool idea in that you used

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what the customer had, and then you said,

hey, maybe you don't have coverage here.

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We built this heat map.

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Let's fill this in with some LoRaWAN.

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Yes, that was really cool.

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Let's see now.

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Can you walk me through the kind of levels

of tracking idea

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and how accurate a position needs to be,

depending on the use case,

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and maybe give me some examples of what

those are. Yes.

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So in some production sites or some more,

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precision

requirements on the access location,

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sometimes the customers would hope

that they could identify or locate

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and assets within a plus -20cm.

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Or sometimes customers say

that we are fine because the asset is big.

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We just need to know where

the location is.

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Somewhere in the zone.

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You know, you could be a plus -20 to 50m,

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but we'll still be able

to get to the zone.

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So we call it the precision,

the zoning of different levels.

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So when we combine Wi-Fi together

with LoRa,

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when it's actually helping our customers

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with a more lax coverage, less precision,

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but yet being able to

constrain it within a zone.

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So we call it a zone zone

level checking system that we provide.

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That's pretty cool.

And can you give me an example of that?

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You guys have some customers

you can talk about?

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Yes. With this, Wi-Fi zoning,

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is actually applicable

and actually actually running

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in one of the semiconductor

manufacturers in Taiwan

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where they want to use this

zoning for personal tracking.

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So they use a batch kind of, device

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to apply to visitors to their facility.

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Okay.

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So these visitors with these badges,

that goes to the, Wi-Fi environment

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and further send out the location

through LoRa so that the operation manager

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would be able to locate people

who are authorized to be in A zone.

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Shouldn't be in B zone.

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So whenever they cross the border,

the operation manager would get an alarm

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and then prevent them from going

further into, some restricted zone.

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We also have an airport in Southeast Asia

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where the airport already had Wi-Fi,

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but they wanted

to, lower their investment

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and try to create more value

out of the existing network.

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So we add on a LoRa on top of the, Wi-Fi,

also provide them the heat map

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so that they could locate the, buggie,

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the golf carts to move people from gate

one to get 50.

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Sometimes this buggy is,

not easy to locate within a big airport.

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And then they also have trackers

on their wheelchairs

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and also some of their working trolleys.

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So in the airport with this combination,

they are running it now.

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And they found that the,

they are being more efficient

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and effective in locating the assets

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and provide the assets to the point of

service where it is, needed.

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You see what I'm saying?

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So sometimes the move it to gate 30

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and but the next 30 minutes,

they need to be at gate one.

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So they improve the efficient efficiency

significantly.

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So this is, a couple of the simple case

use I'm sharing with you.

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So I, I have a great understanding

of the LoRaWAN in the airport.

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That makes a ton of sense.

They've got their Wi-Fi.

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It mostly works. It doesn't always work.

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So you add in LoRaWAN gateways

and you use a tracker.

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That's 100% clear to me.

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The first part, where they're sending

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a position over LoRaWAN

that was gotten from WiFi.

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I'm not as clear on that.

Can you walk me through how that works?

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Why wouldn't you just use the Wi-Fi? Yes.

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No. Because, when you use a,

first of all, when you use a Wi-Fi

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for locating

because of the nature of the protocol,

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is always sending beacons,

and it wears out the battery very quickly.

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So when we when you have all the AP,

you start

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normally between access point,

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WiFi access point, a, Wi-Fi

access point B,

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the distance is probably around 20 to 30m.

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And then you have another 20, 30m

all down the hall.

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So this access point,

all has its own position

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or the, the ID from their

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ID to tell you where they are.

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So we already know access point

number one is located somewhere.

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Number two located somewhere.

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So along the way,

when they get different level of rssi,

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we know actually this device is moving

from access point one to access point two.

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God. Okay.

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So that's super cool.

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Yeah. Now I get it right on.

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So and it makes it

so that the tracker on the LoRaWAN

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side can be much more passive

because you're just listening for WiFi.

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You're not trying to join it.

You're not trying to do anything.

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You're just saying, hey, I heard AP one

and now I'm hearing AP two, no, AP three,

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and you transmit that part over LoRaWAN.

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Okay. Now that is much more clear to me.

Super cool.

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Yes. That's right. Okay.

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So if you want higher precision,

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the higher density of access point

that you have to provide

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a stronger

signal, signal received reception.

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I could narrow down the distance between A

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to B, eh, between A and B,

so you see what I'm saying.

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Yeah. No, that makes a ton of sense. Okay.

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That's really cool.

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And then it was there one other one

that you had that's a use case

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that you can walk me through a thing is

the carts in the or is it a hospital? Yes.

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We also have a hospital in Thailand.

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Yeah. Yeah.

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They're there because in this hospital

wards every nursing station,

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nursing station of the ward

would be supplied by 3 or 4.

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They call the nursing, mobile station,

where it includes the computer,

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plus the TPR sensors for for the

for the patients, and the computers.

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It would be to, retrieve the files.

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But because of all this sharing going

on, many times

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it is, has been misplaced,

not returned to the proper place

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or they are lending or borrowing

are lending to each other different.

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What's in that certain, cases.

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So they want to locate this asset so that

when it is needed they know where it is.

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So it is the same thing in the

in the hospital.

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They already have Wi-Fi.

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And then they wanted to have quick

installation for the essence checking

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and no interference of daily

routines operation.

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That is going on in in the hospital.

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So we say, okay,

we will simply install, you know,

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in each level, two LoRaWAN

gateways, one each at the end.

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So you provide perfect coverage.

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Well, we develop the heat

map of the hospital floors,

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and then we provide the asset tracker

on the mobile station.

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And you can easily locate it

to this connection and know where

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which zone it is being placed.

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That's super cool.

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I mean, this is like an indoor positioning

problem that you're solving and saying,

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hey, you don't need always need to know

down to the centimeter where something is.

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Yeah. All right. This is super clever.

I like this a lot.

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The benefit of is actually helping them

to minimize significant investments.

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Second second of all

is definitely not to interrupt

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any existing operation that has to be done

on a routine, daily routine.

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So it really improve the level

of satisfaction to our customers,

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not only in the, the locating it, but

also in the, the money that is invested.

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Yeah. Yeah. No, it's really cool.

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And then one of the things I hear over

and over in LoRaWAN businesses is

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you start with one thing.

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You put the gateway in there like,

hey, that's cool.

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Can you also do this other,

other aspects that you're seeing,

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they're asking for whatever workplace

safety etc., where they see this,

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you're like,

oh, show me what else you can do.

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Yeah, sure.

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In an area where we actually have

this Wi-Fi, you know, in a warehouse.

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So they they're not only looking

for locating their assets,

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the bigger ones with zoning,

they're also thinking about,

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since we have a LoRa coverage,

can you provide us the

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the geo fence for different area workers

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to prevent them from going area 1 to 2.

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And they also want some security level of,

to prevent unauthorized

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opening

of some emergency assets in the facility.

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So we have our door window sensors

for then to.

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And they will also thinking about

can you install some PIR sensors.

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So in certain area of where

the operation is closed

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because of weekends or holidays,

there's still this LoRaWAN

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activated PIR sensors for motions

when unauthorized person

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happens to come in the facility

during a closed day.

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So there's the expansion.

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You know, when you have the LoRa network

implemented,

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there's actually a lot of different

kind of sensors and services,

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value added services

that could be added into the network.

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I thought that was really clever.

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I think the way that you said it to me

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when we were talking was you said, hey,

consider

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putting these into enhanced security.

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So it's like it's

not this super hard sell.

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It's like, hey, you've got this thing.

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You could

you can put a couple more things in.

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And we because for broadband

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we not only have the device,

we have the gateway plus the solution.

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So it is very easy

for us to have our customers

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to expand on the existing network

for more value added services

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that could help them

to be more effective and efficient.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Now you started

Browan started as a hardware company.

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And started adding these services.

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That's kind of the obvious move is once

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you're making the hardware, like,

all right, let's service it.

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I think the next thing

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coming down the pipe that's, in almost

every one of these conversations is AI.

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What are you guys looking at, if anything,

where you're going to start integrating

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AI into what you're doing?

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Yeah, I think at this, at

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this stage,

we are actually providing the vehicles

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for the datasets, which would then

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further builds up the foundation for AI.

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So before we fully move into AI,

we are actually developing

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analytic tools on the dashboard

to help managers to make decision

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that there's a level of AI implemented

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in the zoning tracking that I mentioned.

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With that we talk about just now because,

you know, in in many instances, people

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or the facility managers

would like to add a new access point.

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And this access point, when added in need,

not be further registered.

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The system, the management system

that will receive additional signal,

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we will verify the BSSID

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and then get it into the network

to expand the closeness

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and the density of it so that, this

the zone would be previously might be 30m.

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But now because of adding new one,

it comes down to a ten meters.

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And the system recognize it,

implement it into the heat map

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and then take it as part of it

by the AI system,

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because you would be authorized

and then get into the heat map,

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because sometimes the access point

is just for broadband purposes,

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but some

they open up for positioning purposes too.

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So then we will recognize it and authorize

it into the heat map automatically.

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So that is the level

AI that we're using it for the natural

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organic expansion.

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And we hope that with more data

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being collected through

the means that we're providing right now,

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the analytic tools would then

further leads to a very effective

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AI model for operational decisions.

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Okay.

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I mean, that sounds pretty exciting

as we kind of wrap this up,

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anything else you see in the future

for Browan that you're excited about that

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you want people in LoRaWAN to know about

and maybe give some guidance on how

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this is where the industry is going.

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Yes. I think

as one of the leading player in LoRaWAN,

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we not only invest a lot in LoRaWAN,

but we also understand

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the needs of our customers

when it comes into an environment

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where is the hybrid of different

technology to enable a real world

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IoT to be practical

and then to be economical.

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So we building on the foundation

of our knowhow

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and our experiences in LoRaWAN,

which would definitely

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be our focus of business

into the years to come.

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We are also adding in new technology

like Wi-Fi, like Ultra Wideband,

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for different levels of integration

and purposes.

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Of course, Bluetooth is already a given.

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Zigbee is also something

that we are integrating

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into our device, and also Wi-Fi. Halow.

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This, when all this technology

have its pros and cons,

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and when added together,

it actually provides

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a better solution for different scenario.

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So as I have mentioned in the Barcelona

speech, as it

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there's always no one single technology

that could address all the problems.

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There's no perfect technology for it,

but there is a united effort

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where all the technology comes together

to address a specific issue.

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So this is what we believe

and will continue to do that improving.

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And it's super cool to see.

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And I love the inclusiveness

and saying, hey, we're

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just going to use the right technology

for the customer,

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maintain that customer focus.

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And that's that's a service. Henry,

I know you're super busy.

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I know you've been traveling a bunch.

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I really appreciate you making the time

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to come on and share

what you're doing with us.

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Thank you very much.

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The pleasure is mine.

Yes. Thank you very much.

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That's it for

this episode of The Business of LoRaWAN.

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I built this for you.

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So whether you're a business owner,

a LoRaWAN professional or a hobbyist,

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the intent is to give you great LoRaWAN

information.

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Of course,

the best information doesn't come from me.

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It comes from the conversations

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we have with the people building

and deploying this tech in the real world.

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And that's where you come in.

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LoRaWAN is a global

patchwork of talent and ideas.

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And ironically,

for a globally connected network,

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most of the brilliant folks

working on it are connected yet.

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Help me change that.

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Introduce me

to someone awesome in your network,

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someone doing meaningful work in LoRaWAN,

or just shoot me a name.

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I'll take it from there

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and get them on the show

so we can share their work with the world.

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You can always find me at metsci.show

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That's M-E-T-S-C-I dot

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S-H-O-W, metsci.show.

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If you want to support the show

in other ways, you can subscribe,

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leave a review,

share it with your corner of the world.

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All of those are super helpful.

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If you'd like to support financially,

you can go to support.metsci.show

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for both one time and recurring options.

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We're also open to sponsors.

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If your company serves

the LoRaWAN community

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and you want to reach this dedicated

audience, let's talk.

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If you want to try it.

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LoRaWAN for yourself,

create a MeteoScientific account

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at console.meteoscientific.com

and get your first 400 DC for free,

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which is enough to run a device

sending hourly for about a year.

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This show is supported

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by a grant from the Helium Foundation

and produced by Gristle King, Inc..

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I'm Nik Hawks.

I'll see you on the next show.

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Nik Hawks

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