Notes from Meetup #9: The Things Network Takeover (Part 1)
In March we had a Things Network Takeover, where we invited people from across the North who are involved with The Things Network (TTN). This is a community-owned and operated Internet of Things network based on LoRa technology, which means it has very long range, low energy consumption and low bandwidth - it’s really a so-called ‘chirp’ network where low power devices out in the environment can take periodic measurements and then communicate them in tiny packets of information (as little as 12 bytes at a time) back via gateways to a central data store.
The Things Network started in a hackspace in Amsterdam in 2015, and now has over 30,000 members around the world. It also makes its own networking hardware, following a successful Kickstarter project. There are TTN communities all over the UK, and there is now a move to bring the northern ones closer together to share knowledge and work on joint projects under the Things North banner.
The Sheffield Things Network is also part of this, and is building a LoRaWAN network across our city, and looking to run some hacks in order to get more people building applications for the network - watch this space!
Anyway, thanks everyone for coming to the event, and especially to Roy Woodhead for pulling it together and getting so many great people gathered in one room - it’s great to see the network come together across the North.
We had eight speakers in total, which I think may be a record - here’s part 1 of the event notes, with the first four speakers. The second set of four are in the next post…
Patrick Fenner
defproc Engineering and The Things Network Liverpool
Patrick runs a digital design and engineering company in Liverpool, called DefProc Engineering, and is the instigator of the Things Network Liverpool.
Patrick tells the story of his involvement with LoRaWAN and the projects that have spring from that involvement, since the first gateway went live in his Liverpool office almost exactly two years ago. He describes the tools and technologies he has used, from designing the gateway for remote monitoring and software updates, to building more, installing them and hosting hackathons to encourage other people to build devices that utilize the network. He explains how quickly things have evolved and the many new gateway options that have materialised since he started.
His ambition going forward is to explain to non-technical people what the point is - what can be done with this technology and how useful it is, using the analogy of bluetooth, which people were similarly unaware of ten years ago.
Defproc have themselves explored several IoT use cases, including a simple humidity monitor, with a dashboard.
Patrick is now looking for other ways of using the technology, and is pleased to be a consortium partner on Liverpool’s 5G Test Bed, where they will be deploying a ’push to talk’ service to address isolation and loneliness. This involves an elderly person pushing a LoRaWAN-enabled button, and then receiving a phone call from another person who initiated the push to talk system - in other words connecting isolated people in the city without a centrally managed service.
The 5G testbed funding will allow them to set up an additional ten gateways, with 5G backhaul, covering large areas of the city.
Visit the Things Network Liverpool community page.
Julian Tait
Open Data Manchester and The Things Network Manchester
In the first part of his talk, Julian explained what Open Data Manchester do, particularly around the events and workshops they run on data and open infrastructures. The next one will be about land use, using land registry data. They also look at new data practices and standards, and are very interested in the Internet of Things, particularly regarding data ethics and the collection of data through sensors in the environment.
Julian then presented two projects they are currently working on that involve the Things Network:
The Knowable Building Framework looks at how sensor networks can be installed in older buildings in order to provide the benefits of modern sensor installations to those landlords. Beyond the technical challenge, the project looks at how you might create a consensual approach to placing sensors in an environment where you have many different people using the building’s spaces.
The building they are using for this project is Federation House, and The Things Network allows the installation of sensors in a non-invasive way, i.e. with no need for cabling. A single gateway was placed in the building, and the sensors were also able to connect to other gateways in the centre of manchester.
Julian explained how they analysed the sensor data in order to identify where savings could be made, and that these savings provided the business case for the project. He then went on to describe how they re-analysed the data to focus on behaviour, and how this can present security or privacy risks. And finally, they looked at how sensors exist in buildings, how visible they are, how they interact with building users (for instance detecting the MAC address on a person’s phone), and where the data is stored.
The second project is one that maps pollution and school locations in Greater Manchester, and seeks to help those schools measure and understand the dynamics of pollution that affect them, in the process helping school students learn about sensor networks, analysing data and communicating the knowledge that can be gained from it. The intention is them to work with the GroundWork Trust, to see if air quality can be improved in schools by using planting to mitigate the problem.
Visit the Things Network Manchester community page.
Simon Redding
Spire Digital and The Things Network Chesterfield
Simon explained how he and Simon Nieder are working out of a small community incubator and co-working space called Monkey Works in Chesterfield to develop Things Network projects.
He described Chesterfield’s geography and how they are trying to understand the use case and application areas of the Things Network in a market town.
First of course, they need a network and are building an initial network of 4 gateways which should cover most of the town, with a population of around 100,000 people.
They are working on the following use cases:
Footfall and flow in the town centre.
The cycle network.
Air quality (there is currently only one air quality sensor in the town, and it isn’t where the pollution is).
Flood sensing, in collaboration with the Canal Trust.
Social care and tele-medicine.
Security.
Simon then talks at length about the hardware they have been experimenting with, both gateways and nodes.
Visit the Things Network Chesterfield community page.
