[HH] IoT connectivity used by BigBelly

[Ethan Schwartz]

On 3/20/17 12:45 PM, Tom Metro wrote:
> They don't make it easy to find (they have several press releases and
> blog postings on the fact that their trash receptacles are networked,
> but they never disclose the technical details). Eventually, though, I
> found a link to the vendor they used to implement the networking hardware:
>
> https://www.digi.com/customersuccesses/driving-operational-efficiencies-intelligent-waste
>
> "Custom embedded cellular radios form Digi Wireless Design Services into
> solar powered trash and recycling compactor units."
>
> So they are using cellular radios.
>

Little late to the party but...

Bigbelly's use in-house designed boards with different models of 
integrated cellular modules depending on generation; Digi was an early 
consultant on the first generation(s) of devices but hasn't been 
involved for many years.

As for LoRA, there are certainly situations where that would work for 
devices like Bigbelly, but cellular is ubiquitous world-wide; A device 
can be dropped practically anywhere without much consideration for how 
close it is to another device, or to non-cellular radio 
infrastructure--cellular is a "just works" solution.  The cellular 
modules aren't cheap, but LoRA and other alternatives probably don't 
offer enough BOM savings at relatively low build- volumes to offset the 
potential problems with deployment and field troubleshooting headaches.

The other thing to consider is the usage model for the data--if you have 
a lot of local inter-device communication (such as sensor nets with 
local data analysis or retention) then it makes sense to deploy 
something like LoRA and be able to keep your local traffic on mesh and 
off the gateways--but, if the majority of your communication is very 
small packets of "phone home" data then going to a mesh network with 
gateways doesn't buy you much, and the per-byte costs for cellular are 
reasonably low already and getting lower.

-Ethan