Academy for LoRaWAN®

ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS: Use binary encoding to send your data. Below are several examples of how you might send data. The same message could take up to 40 bytes, or just two.

• Using a simple JSON string takes 40 bytes:

{ “Count”: 1234, "Temperature": 20.635 }

• Removing the counter (which is already included in the header) and the spaces, as well as compressing names, takes only 11 bytes:

{“t”:20.63}

• Using a float instead of a string takes five bytes:

20.63 

• Using a signed 16-bit integer takes just two bytes:

0x080F

• Finally, using an index from a base value takes just one byte:

  0x17

The interval between messages should be in the range of several minutes, so be smart with your data. You could, for example, transmit a min|avg|max every five minutes, or you could transmit only when a sensor value changes more than a certain threshold amount. Similarly, you could have transmissions be triggered by motion or other events.