I’ve been working on an integration between an Browan GPS tracker and Azure. The Browan TBOL100 tracker is only a little thing and it looks like this…
My integration simply logs tracking data into an Azure SQL table via an Azure IoT Hub and an Azure Function. The table includes the location of the tracker (obviously) but also the distance to the hotspot.
It’s been working nicely so I thought I might as well take it on holiday to the south coast of England. I kept it charged but pretty much forgot about it. When I returned and looked at the SQL data, it had achieved some impressive results. Here are some of the rows of data…
The ‘HostspotDistance’ column is in metres, so this tiny device managed to communicate with a Helium hotspot 146km (90 miles) away! It seems incredible but there you have it.
To clarify, Sidmouth (where we were staying) is on the south coast of England and has no local Helium hotspots. However, there are plenty of hotspots on the Channel Island of Guernsey and that is where those three hotspots are located. The connections were, therefore, across open water – the English Channel – but it’s still an impressive result…
I find it remarkable that such a small, battery powered device could transmit such a distance. It seems that Helium could easily be used for IoT solutions on coastal shipping routes, especially when the devices’ antenna is mounted high on a mast. Interesting stuff.