The Things Network Announces Another Record-Breaking Transmission Distance of 832km

The Things Network has announced another world record for longest successful transmission over its community-driven LoRaWAN long-range low-power radio network, beating the previous 766km (476 mile) record to an impressive 832km (517 miles.)

"In the past 5 years, the world record for the maximum distance a LoRaWAN data packet can travel has been broken multiple times, even once being broken within 5 hours of being set," The Things Network's team writes by way of background. "The last world record was 766 km (476 miles) and the new record stands at an incredible 832 km (517 miles).

"The new world record was set on Thursday, 16th of April. The attempt was made by Thomas Telkamp, CTO and co-founder of Lacuna Space and was presented live during The Things Virtual Conference. Thomas Telkamp was interestingly also involved in a previous record breaking event. Similar to previous attempts, this attempt involved launching a high altitude balloon filled with helium, that had been attached with a LoRaWAN sensor."

The record attempt took place in Utrecth, The Netherlands, though the balloon quickly drifted into Germany where it spent the majority of its four and a half hour flight. The payload was a test device designed and produced by Lacuna Space, powered by a Saft battery and connected to The Things Network's local LoRaWAN infrastructure.

"The gateway which picked up the data packet to break the record first was 775km (476 miles) away in Grenoble, France," the team continues. "The gateway which picked up this message, was funnily enough the same Kerlink gateway which helped break the world record last time! The gateway was installed as part of the Wise-IoT European project for smart ski station experimentation. The previous record was held by the University of Zaragoza which was set at 766km (476 miles) last year.

"At 38 km altitude, just before the balloon started it's descent, a LoRaWAN packet was received by a gateway at an astonishing distance of 832km (517 miles). This gateway was part of a CRA tower, on a mountain called Radhost located in the Czech Republic near the border of Slovakia."

More information on the record, and on The Things Network and LoRaWAN in general, can be found on the official announcement.