Expanding smart utility meter adoption with LoRaWAN

As a result of integrating Semtech’s LoRa devices and the LoRaWAN protocol, Vision has confirmed it has been quickly onboarding municipal utilities across the US and Latin America with its metering hardware and software at a rate of two to three per week. Vision helps customers install their own LoRaWAN networks and provides them with plug and play tools to manage their systems, avoiding costly third-party connectivity contracts.

Additionally, Presque Isle Electric & Gas Co-Op, a Vision customer, reported it is conducting a full system deployment for its rural electric cooperative over a nine county area in Northeast Michigan to replace its monthly member-read honor system and annual ‘true-up’ task of manually reading 47,500 metres.

Moreover, a representative from the Ferry County Washington Public Utility District No.1 shared that District No. 1 is projected to save over $20,000 this year just by eliminating 100-mile round trip transportation costs to read the electric meters of remote customers in the Cascades through the adoption of the end devices featuring LoRa, according to a spokesperson.

“Semtech’s LoRa devices has been instrumental in our development and successful rollout of a new completely modular system for any combination of electrical, water and gas utilities,” said Randy Austin, President and CEO of Vision. “Our cooperative and public owned utility customers are saving all kinds of money by upgrading legacy systems to Vision’s fixed, long range AMI solutions that eliminate traditional manual meter reading methods and expensive truck rolls to turn services on and off.”

Semtech’s innovative technology has a diverse range of applications including smart cities, health care, utilities, supply chain and logistics, and more, which aligns with Vision’s goal of designing and bringing smart electricity, gas and water meters throughout the globe.

“Vision’s smart meter solutions utilizing LoRa empower utility companies in both urban and rural areas with smart, sustainable and efficient utility management,” said Marc Pegulu, vice president of IoT for Semtech’s Wireless and Sensing Products Group. “The ease of deployment, scalability and cost-savings capabilities of LoRaWAN make it the de facto platform connectivity choice for a growing market of electrical, water and gas IoT monitoring applications.”