Participation Report from The Things Conference 2023

This year we actively participated in The Things Conference held in Amsterdam, which is the largest LoRaWAN event worldwide.

(Last year we participated in the virtual event see this article). The Things Conference comprises of three core parts: the presentations & workshops, the wall of fame, the booths & networking areas.

Presentations

The main component of The Things Conferences is its presentations. This year during the duration of the whole event presentations were held in parallel at two stages. Topics ranged from specific solution examples to hardware introductions. Especially popular with the audiences were talks that were AI-related.

We ourselves gave a talk about the current LPWAN trends in the Japanese market. With it, we hoped to interest more device and software makers to enter the Japanese LoRaWAN market. If you have missed the presentation or its livestream you can read more about it in this article.

Our presentation at The Things Conference

Wall of Fame

A very popular part of the event is the Wall of Fame, which features LoRaWAN devices from all around the world. It allows the conference participants to view and touch the newest devices and get an overview of current trends in device development. This year many devices regarding smart buildings were featured, such as LoRaWAN-capable thermostats and people counters. Further many different tracking devices were featured on this year’s wall.

Picture of whole wall of fame for devices

We are especially proud that our EM-ELST01 device made its international debut at this year’s event.

“EM-ELST01 reliably captures state changes and deformation of structures through its accelerometer and switch sensor. The device is equipped with a large-capacity battery and a dust-/waterproof casing (equivalent to IP66). This allows long-term deployments in harsh environments with little to no maintenance. Applications are for instance: state monitoring of flood gates along the coastline or monitoring of construction site vehicles.”

Picture of ELmote device at the wall of fame

Further this year there was for the first time a Wall of Fame featuring LoRaWAN solutions. The items were categorized by application fields into three groups: “Environmental & Resource Management”, ”Industrial, Oil, Gas & Energy”, and ”Building Management & Environment”.

Picture of whole wall of fame for solutions

Booths and Networking

Though the presentations and workshops are popular among the participants, the most treasured is the opportunity to network with old and new players in the LoRaWAN market. We were happy to introduce ourselves to many companies and we are hoping to establish more international partnerships.

Picture of networking area

When looking at the booths the impact of the looming energy crisis in Europe was visible. Many booths featured solutions promising energy efficiency for industrial, office, and private buildings.

Booth by Thermokon

Another trend we notice is the growing number of indoor and outdoor edge devices that use voltaic technology to increase their lifetime. This was visible at the Wall of Fame but also in the presence of two voltaic technology companies in a total of approx. 50 booths. Our interest was especially piqued by the highly sensitive photovoltaic cells that allow energy harvesting at low light levels indoors.

Booth by Dracula Technologies

JuniorIOT.nl

We would specifically like to introduce you to the Junior IOT booth which had an interactive space we enjoyed a lot. Their foundation aims to kindle technical interest in children (ages 7-17). We enjoyed their hands-off, experimental teaching style and even received a small set of hardware to experiment with at home using the instructions available on their homepage.

Booth of Junior IoT

Our small experimental results

Soldering goodie bag