Introduction to LoRaWAN Asset Tracking Using the Helium Network
Exploring Helium Network coverage
Take a moment to explore Helium fixed-network coverage via the Helium Explorer, Helium mappers, or Helium cargo projects. Interestingly, many metro areas in the U.S. and Europe have dense enough existing coverage to allow a number of outdoor IoT deployments today–without any additional gateway deployments.
Helium Explorer provides an interactive map of all the Hotspots deployed globally by the Helium community. Using this tool, you can quickly determine whether a specific location has any nearby Hotspots providing Helium LoRaWAN network coverage. Note that the green shaded hex areas only represent that someone in the community has onboarded a Hotspot to the corresponding location and should not be considered a detailed RF coverage map. If there is more than one hotspot in a hex, the corresponding number is shown. Having more online Hotspots in an area or hex provides redundancy and in general better Helium network availability.
Explore map example from area on outskirts of Atlanta
By clicking on a hex and zooming in, you can see the full details of the Hotspots providing coverage, including their online/offline status; whether they have witnessed other nearby Hotspots; and whether they have transferred any data from a LoRaWAN endpoint. It’s critical to verify that Hotspots in the desired tracking locations are online, have witnessed other nearby hotspots, and ideally have processed data packets for LoRaWAN endpoints. These details can be obtained by selecting a hotspot and then the Witnessed and Activity->Data tabs from Explorer.
Example of Hotspot that is online, witnessed, and recently transferred data packets.
While Explorer is a useful tool to inspect details of Hotspot deployments in specific areas, Helium mappers and Helium cargo provide another type of coverage verification tool. In this case, the green shaded hex areas highlight the location from which a successful Helium network transmission was made by a GPS-enabled LoRaWAN tracker device. These maps demonstrate the successful use of the Helium network by an end device. Helium community supporters voluntarily configure their tracker devices to share data with these projects and typically put them in their vehicles. Therefore, the coordinates seen on these maps typically follow roadways and represent the locations of successful transmissions. Note that the Browan Object Locator can optionally be configured to support both of these projects. For more information, please see instructions on integrating a custom payload decoder in the Helium Console.
Example of coverage map for the Tampa/St.Petersburg area
In the example map above from the Tampa/St.Petersburg area, you can observe successful Helium transmissions from vehicles crossing the three bridges across Tampa Bay. Obviously, there are no Helium Hotspots deployed in the middle of Tampa Bay. By clicking on one of the green shaded hexes, you can see the details of the successful RF transmissions, including which Hotspots provided coverage.
Example of coverage map for the Tampa/St.Petersburg area
In summary, the Helium community provides multiple tools for exploring existing network coverage. For city or neighborhood applications, Helium mappers and Helium cargo may provide the best high-level tool to access coverage. For a more site-specific assessment, you can use Explorer to see details on specific Hotspots deployed nearby. As always, Helium network coverage can easily be expanded by anyone by deploying Hotspots to new areas.