Academy for LoRaWAN®

To obtain a device's location using a GPS module on the device requires a lot of power. This is especially important for battery-powered devices. Lower-power options are available. These options don’t require special device hardware. Rather, they use information from the network to obtain a location.

If the application needs a precise location (down to less than a meter) and the device is outdoors, GPS is likely the best (and possibly the only) option.

If the application only needs the location to be accurate within a few meters, consider using the native geolocation capabilities of LoRaWAN.

However, for a number of tracking applications, the precise location may not be important. It may be enough to know that the device is on the move. Or, perhaps, knowing the position within a kilometer will be sufficient. This can be achieved using information from the gateway(s) that received the signals sent by the device to be located, and the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) and Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) values that the gateway collects when it receives a signal from the end device. With this data in hand, you can calculate the position of the device.