Private LoRa network for cold room monitoring
A multi-site organisation needed to supervise cold rooms in environments where Wi-Fi and cabling were not suitable. Deployment of a private LoRa network with temperature sensors, automatic alerts and data logging.
Field reference from Azymuth founder's hands-on experience, applied today to design concrete operational solutions.
Context
An organisation with multiple food storage sites needed to supervise cold rooms spread across different locations. These sites presented significant deployment constraints: no suitable network cabling, insufficient Wi-Fi coverage, shared premises or difficult access.
Manual temperature monitoring could not ensure continuous surveillance and made it difficult to quickly detect a failure, particularly outside of staffed hours.
The Problem
Conventional remote monitoring solutions faced concrete constraints on this type of site:
Insufficient network coverage. Wi-Fi is not available in all storage zones, and cold rooms are often in technical premises or separate buildings.
Cabling impossible or costly. Running Ethernet cables through existing premises represented a cost and disruption incompatible with the organisation's constraints.
Monitoring scalability. The number of cold rooms to supervise and the dispersal of sites made a sensor-per-sensor approach with dedicated Wi-Fi gateways difficult to maintain.
Health and regulatory requirements. Food cold chains are subject to traceability obligations. An undetected temperature drift can compromise product safety and engage the organisation's liability.
What Was Put in Place
1. Private LoRa Network Deployment
A private LoRa network was set up to cover all relevant sites. Unlike Wi-Fi, LoRa offers long range (several hundred metres to several kilometres depending on the environment) with low energy consumption, making it particularly suitable for battery-powered sensors in constrained environments.
A central LoRaWAN gateway collects transmissions from all sensors deployed across the coverage area.
2. Temperature Sensor Deployment
Battery-powered temperature sensors were installed in each cold room requiring supervision. Their compact size and multi-year battery life allow deployment without cabling constraints or frequent maintenance.
Each sensor's position was defined to measure the representative temperature of the storage zone, taking into account air circulation and refrigeration equipment layout.
3. Centralised Supervision and Alerts
All readings are transmitted to a centralised supervision platform. Each cold room is individually visible with its temperature history and current status.
Alert thresholds were configured per unit. Any exceedance triggers an immediate notification to the field managers, enabling intervention before products are affected.
4. Logging and Traceability
All readings are timestamped and retained. Teams can produce conservation reports on demand and meet cold chain traceability obligations without manual consolidation.
Technical Components
- Private LoRa network adapted to field constraints
- Central LoRaWAN gateway
- Long-life battery-powered temperature sensors
- Centralised multi-unit supervision
- Configurable alerts per unit and per threshold
- Timestamped data logging
- Traceability data export and reporting
Operational Benefits
- Coverage adapted to constrained environments, without heavy cabling
- Fast deployment: sensor installation without infrastructure works
- Continuous cold chain monitoring, including outside staffed hours
- Drift alerts enabling intervention before product impact
- Actionable traceability for field teams and quality managers
- Multi-site supervision from a single point without travel
Transferable Learning
LoRaWAN is particularly relevant when sensors are numerous, dispersed or difficult to wire. The long range and low energy consumption of this protocol enable continuous supervision in environments where conventional solutions are not suited.
This architecture can be extended progressively: new cold rooms or new sensor types (humidity, power consumption, door opening) can be added to the existing network without redesigning the infrastructure.
Need to supervise multiple remote units or sites without suitable network infrastructure? Launch a POC diagnostic.