3
The Role of Batteries
in IoT Devices
Batteries have been the de facto power source for
IoT devices due to their simplicity and portability.
However, they come with several downsides:
Environmental impact: Disposal and
recycling challenges contribute to e-waste.
Maintenance burden: Devices in remote
locations require costly and frequent servicing.
Limited lifespan: Battery degradation
shortens device lifetimes.
These issues are magnified when devices are
deployed in large numbers or in inaccessible
environments.
LoRa Alliance
®
WHITEPAPER
Power Consumption Characteristics
of LoRaWAN
®
LoRaWAN is inherently suited for low-power operation:
Sleep modes: Devices spend the majority of time in ultra-low-power sleep.
Infrequent transmission: Data is typically transmitted periodically, reducing average
power usage.
Efficient protocols: Optimized for long-range and low-data-rate communication.
These features align well with the capabilities of energy harvesting technologies. The
extremely low power consumption of LoRaWAN protocol for wireless communication
allows for sensors and trackers to become energy-autonomous by replacing batteries
from the design with energy harvesting modules. As a matter of fact, of all wireless
protocols LoRaWAN is destined to be 'married' with Energy Harvesting. Other wireless
protocols may consume too much energy to be powered by energy harvesting.
