Senet, a low power wide area network provider for North American LoRa-based “internet of things” applications, today announced a partnership with Paige Ag, a manufacturer and supplier of wire, cables, cable assemblies and electrical accessories, targeting smart farming and irrigation in agriculture.
Poor wireless coverage in rural areas has impeded IoT adoption, according to Senet. Farm land is often isolated from cellular, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi technologies, and where they do exist, cost and complexity of deployment can be prohibitive. With device connectivity ranges of around 15 miles, battery power life of around 10 years and a low per-device cost, LoRa-compatible products are hoping to change the way “things” are monitored and measured to enable smart farming.
“With the rapid evolution of IoT solutions, it’s critical to make the right strategic choices, select the right partners and quickly deliver compelling capabilities to market,” said Will Yapp, VP of business development for Senet. “We are extremely pleased that Paige Electric has selected Senet as their IoT network provider to deliver solutions in the agriculture space.”
A relevant use case for LPWAN is gathering data on local agricultural conditions including weather, soil moisture, chemical compositions of the soil and other environmental conditions at lower total cost of ownership than current cellular offerings. And according to Senet, they make it possible to expand per-acre coverage and monitor more assets due to the simplicity of deployment and cost of ownership reductions.
“Senet’s highly scalable and reliable low power, wide area network provides a significant opportunity for our agriculture customers looking to use empirical data to improve operational planning and decision making,” said Julie Bushell, director of sales and marketing for Paige’s Agwire division. “Based on market demand and proven use cases, we are initially focusing on delivering LoRa-based irrigation solutions to help our customers capture real economic value from the ‘internet of things.’”
