May 25, 2017

LTE-M battery life, Theory versus Praxis

Lessons Learned or History Repeated?

One of the lessons that have been repeated over and over again throughout the cellular generations is that the theoretical performance, that which is designed and specified in the standards is not reflected in the real world. Such was the case with 2.5G (GPRS), 2.75G (EDGE), or 3.5G (HSPA+) and even LTE. The standards bodies write up specifications that have certain performance requirements and technologies are put together to try and meet those performance specifications. LTE has a theoretical speed of 100 Mbps. But according to Open Signal—a well-respected open-source reporting agency on the cellular experience around the world—the average LTE speed around the world (as of November 2016) is only 17.4 Mbps. In other words, if the target is 100 Mbps, then real-world LTE is only hitting 17.4% of its theoretical capability. This simply fits the pattern: real-world performance of cellular technologies fall short—far short—of their expected performance.

The point here isn’t to disparage LTE, far from it. LTE is the workhorse of cellular, powerful, and serves consumers and businesses very well. The point is to show that while 3GPP, at least until very recently, touted 10+ years of battery life, it is likely that it will fall far short once it hits the real world. If, as a hypothetical, LTE-M were to meet its battery projections like LTE meets its throughput specs, then it would last only 1 year and 9 months, or 17.4% of 10 years. While that is obviously conjecture, what isn’t is the fact that LTE-M’s actual battery-life performance is yet to be borne out.

And that is really the major problem here, nobody knows LTE-M’s actual battery life because battery-life can’t be known until the final technology is deployed on a real device, on an actual commercial network, in real-world conditions.

Here are the steps to really knowing LTE-M’s battery life:

  1. Finalize the written standard
  2. Build a chip to the completed standard
  3. Build an actual commercial product with the chip integrated
  4. Assess chip performance in device in lab conditions
  5. Deploy in real world conditions and confirm battery life performance

Until that day when all five steps are completed nobody can really know.

To learn more about RPMA, download our eBook, How RPMA Works: the Making of RPMA

February 24, 2017

What Rectangles Teach About Battery Life

One of the key technology developments that enables the IoT to reach its vision is much better battery life in wireless technologies. It’s important because it allows for devices to stay out in the field, serving its purpose without needing to be serviced (which costs a lot and reduces the product’s overall ROI). That’s why so many in the low-power, wide-area (LPWA) space are clamoring to claim long battery life.

Many try to look at the transmit power used to send a signal as a single metric for comparing battery life. Battery life is one of those complicated beasts that unlike coverage, which can be summed up using link budget, requires the whole system to be in place before you can know what it really is.

When it comes to battery life, it is better to transmit quickly at a higher power, than to transmit slowly at a lower power. Why? Well, that’s calculus my dear fellow! If battery usage is the area under the curve, then you want to minimize the area under that curve. So sending one acknowledged message at high transmit power very quickly (RPMA) uses far less battery than sending a single message three times because it isn’t acknowledged using less transmit power (e.g., Sigfox & LoRa technologies). Here’s a picture to demonstrate:

An analogous example, though with some differences but still illustrating the point, happens on our smartphones all the time. Assuming all else equal, when downloading a given large file or video, our smartphones use much less battery power on LTE versus 2G. The reason for this is that LTE uses a very short transmit time because it sends and receives data at a high data rate while 2G uses a much lower data rate over a longer time period.
This is a classic example of more advanced technology making things simpler for us as users. Technology is another word for making a machine of some sort do all the work we’d rather not do. That’s its job. And that’s what we’ve done with RPMA. If you want to have long battery life, with RPMA it’s simple, just use it.

Click here to download our white paper Six Secrets to Long Battery Life to learn the other things that go into building a device with long battery life.

January 26, 2017

Get the Data You Pay For

Is this enough data for IoT?

How much data do you truly need for IoT? Historically, cellular carriers would always be very cautious using large data plans to ensure customers do not pay overages while using their applications. Ingenu is changing the game. Big data is becoming smart data. Applications using 10’s of MBs over cellular are being cut down to size through techniques like compression, data logging, and event-based reporting. Utilizing the ultra-efficient RPMA networks allows GPS applications to function on plans in the mere KB’s per month.  As an additional example, an electrical power line may be monitored to watch voltage crossing a wire, but does it really need to establish a full cellular data session to inform them daily that all is well? This can affect battery life and allow unnecessary amounts of data to traverse the network. While some devices lay dormant and can be “shoulder tapped” to establish a session and improve battery life, it is truly selling the application short for what it can actually do.

Round it up!

Rounding is a term that is used with cellular data sessions and can make a very simple, active IoT application use 10x the data it actually needs to use. Ted Myers, CTO of Ingenu, states “1MB on an RPMA network may provide much more value than 1MB on the cellular network due to the cellular industry performing 1KB rounding on billing. As an example, if your average message transaction is 32 bytes, you will be billed for 1KB of data each time. RPMA billing does not work that way.”

Although there is definitely a need for large data amounts for very involved applications, 90% of all IoT applications use less than 3MB. This is right in the sweet spot of RPMA technology. RPMA can also allow a device to report back while using minimal amounts of battery to show the user that all is well. This allows an extension to the life of the application for 10, 15, even 20 years past their previous deployments.

Everyone in IoT is ultra-focused on robust applications using the least amount of power and utilizing all of the billed data for their customers. So, when building the next generation device for your deployment, please ensure you are looking at all avenues to maximize your IoT application and get the data you pay for.

July 18, 2016

Reduce, Rethink, Recycle

When deploying an Internet of Things (IoT) strategy, it is important to consider the longevity of the network as well as the longevity of the devices that will be attached to said network.  The benefit of the IoT lies in its relatively low device costs, but this benefit can be all but negated when the device needs regular servicing or replacement.

Avoiding an expensive service truck roll is paramount, especially when it is just to change out a device battery. Low-power networks typically serve devices which are battery powered, and ideally, these devices should remain operational for years, even decades without the need for attention.

Changing IoT device batteries can harm profitability, but it can be even more harmful to the environment.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), each year Americans throw away more than three billion batteries, which equates to about 180,000 tons of waste.  While modern batteries do not contain the same harmful properties of their predecessors, choosing to recycle these batteries is still a better choice as they can take decades to break down in a landfill.

Although the U.S. is a leader in IoT device adoption, it lags far behind other countries in battery recycling initiatives.  It is estimated that European countries such as Switzerland, Belgium and Sweden recycle more than 50% of all batteries, while the United States is in the low double digits for battery recycling, despite the prevalence of clean initiatives throughout the nation.

Aside from changing habits, we should look at changing consumption.  As advances in battery life technology continue to progress, devices can utilize fewer and fewer batteries throughout their lifetimes.  Additionally, designing an IoT network to effectively transmit data at very low power can also help extend battery life.   So, when implementing an Internet of Things strategy, remember that the battery is one of the most important “things” that should be considered.

For more discussion on this topic, download our white paper, The Six Secrets to Extremely Long Battery Life.

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