Installation Best Practices
LoRa sensors are designed so that they will attempt to connect and transmit through any nearby gateways. The most common reason for missing readings is because the sensor cannot reach a gateway. Sensors will attempt to reach any gateway in range, but if there is interference or if the sensor is located at the far end of range for a gateway, you may experience missing readings.
Some things that affect the maximum range of your sensors include:
How many walls are between the gateway and the sensor
Thickness of the walls
Number of floors between the gateway and the sensor (for multiple story buildings)
How much radio frequency is active in the building
You will have better connectivity success by keeping in mind the following tips for deploying hardware:
Always verify sensors are transmitting and have good coverage before calling the install complete
After deploying Gateways and Sensors into a facility, it pays to ensure that everything is working as expected. By allowing data to flow in and using the dashboard app to verify sensors are transmitting fully as expected, you can reduce any future trouble.
This is an important step that we recommend everyone do after a deployment. Please see our dedicated article that goes through how to verify sensor transmission using the app.
Aim for a signal strength (RSSI) of -99 dBm or better for 3 readings in a row when installing new sensors, to avoid future disconnections and missed readings.
Signal strength is always a negative number and closer to zero is better. So -60 is better than -80 which is better than -95. Once you get into the -100s and -110s, you’ll start to have trouble with sensor reliability.
Deploy multiple Gateways
There are several advantages to deploying multiple gateways in your facility.
Redundancy - Sensors will attempt to connect with any nearby gateway. If one gateway drops offline for any reason, there is a better chance that nearby sensors will continue transmitting if they can reach an additional gateway as backup.
Improved Signal Strength - If a sensor’s signal strength (RSSI) drops too low, it may have difficulty reliably transmitting readings. The closer a sensor is to a gateway the better, yielding more certainty of capturing every data point and a stronger resistance to any intermittent interference.
In our testing of indoor facilities, it is safe to place your sensors in a range of up to 1,000 feet, but every building and sensor model is different. Please check the signal strength on any installations to ensure you are at -99 dBm or better for best performance.
Deploy Gateways up high or on different floors
If your facility has multiple floors we recommend deploying a gateway at the top level and then on every other floor if possible. If you have a facility with substructure, we recommend deploying gateways on those levels as well.
Deploy both Ethernet and Cellular Gateways
Where possible, try to use at least one hardwired Internet gateway to rule out any temporary or interference that may result from having a 100% cellular connection (i.e. maintain redundancy in connection type). In addition we recommend having UPS / battery backup to protect both Internet and Gateway connections in the case of power outages.
For facilities with substructures, we do not recommend using Cellular on those levels - deploy an Ethernet connected gateway if there are ports available.
For facilities with below ground parking structures, we recommend deploying an Ethernet gateway on those levels as a cellular-based connection is usually unreliable.
Deploy Gateways at opposite ends of the facility / opposite wings
If your facility has wings where line of sight to nearby gateways is difficult (i.e. it would pass through several walls, including possibly to the exterior and then back to the interior) we recommend deploying a Gateway at both ends of the facility. This way sensors at either end will be able to easily communicate to their gateway and sensors in the middle will be able to use whichever gateway they choose is better.
Overlap Gateways where there are is a large concentration of sensors
If you will be deploying lots of sensors in a single area, we recommend ensuring that you have two overlapping gateways to ensure:
Backup in case of a failure in one of the gateways (redundancy)
Adequate throughput should a burst of data occur (this is especially true in cases where your sensors support Local Backup and may start data a burst of recovery data in the event of prolonged outages).
Don’t mix LoRa networks
Ensure that at your facility you have every gateway configured and connected to use the same LoRa Network Server (LNS). You can use different networks at different facilities, but we never recommend a mixture as network hopping can cause sensor connectivity issues.