North Carolina-based IotaComm is working with New York’s Stony Brook University to deploy a LoRaWan testbed on campus.

The university’s Center of Excellence in Wireless & Information Technology (CEWIT) is creating a living lab for research, education, and commercialisation of IoT to advance smart buildings, smart grids, environmental monitoring, and health and safety applications.

Designed as a scalable platform for low-power, wide-area network (LPWAN) innovation, the testbed will initially expand to three buildings with up to six gateways. This will support an increasing catalogue of devices and sensors while serving as a regional blueprint for secure, carrier-grade IoT connectivity that leverages IotaWave, IotaComm’s dual-band LoRaWan, which combines its nationwide licensed 800MHz spectrum with the 915MHz ISM band.

A recently launched pilot with Revert Technologies (reverttechnologies.com) exemplifies the partnership’s impact. Using IotaWave-enabled smart plugs across campus facilities, the project is capturing granular, real-time device-level energy data to identify usage patterns and inform optimisation strategies. As data collection continues – with downlink control planned in subsequent phases – the pilot aims to demonstrate meaningful energy savings and operational efficiencies, validating IotaWave as a practical backbone for measurable decarbonisation and cost reduction at scale.

“We are thrilled to partner with IotaComm to expand our IoT initiatives,” said Rong Zhao, director of CEWIT. “The testbed will not only facilitate ground-breaking research but also serve as a platform for students and faculty to engage in real-world applications of IoT technology. The pilot with Revert Technologies is just the beginning of what we can achieve together.”

Terrence DeFranco, CEO of IotaComm, added: “This partnership is much more than a testbed. We see it as both a strategic entry point into the New York metro market and a national model for how IotaWave can serve as the next generation of wireless infrastructure. Through CEWIT’s leadership, we’re enabling an ecosystem where hardware innovation, secure connectivity and analytics come together to create outcomes that matter for campuses, communities and the economy.”

And Alper Yegin, CEO of the LoRa Alliance (lora-alliance.org), added: “The CEWIT-IotaComm collaboration at Stony Brook University exemplifies the kind of innovation and real-world deployment that continues to accelerate LoRaWan adoption worldwide. By uniting academic research, enterprise partnerships and community impact, this initiative showcases how LoRaWan’s open global standard enables scalable, secure and energy-efficient options for everything from smart buildings to climate resilience. We’re proud to see members and partners like IotaComm advancing the ecosystem through meaningful, future-ready projects that inspire the next generation of IoT innovators.”

Beyond smart plugs and building insights, the testbed will catalyse R&D across:

• Environmental and infrastructure monitoring: IAQ, water-level and flood sensing, wildfire alerting, and more
• Smart grid and utilities: fault detection and diagnostics, predictive maintenance
• Health and wearables: remote patient monitoring devices that benefit from secure, low-power connectivity without reliance on wifi or Bluetooth
• Data science and AI: IotaComm’s Delphi360 and IotaCore cloud analytics tools enable researchers to build predictive models from real sensor data

The collaboration also leverages CEWIT’s cross-centre relationships, particularly with its Advanced Energy Research & Technology Center (AERTC, www.aertc.org), to engage industry advisory boards and early adopters across New York state.

CEWIT and IotaComm will anchor workforce and education initiatives that connect learners to real projects. The partners will pursue Long Island programmes that include multi-week hardware and analytics challenges in a hardware hackathon format with structured touchpoints. It will see the integration of LoRaWan data into CEWIT’s annual High School Hackathon, engaging teachers and administrators across Long Island. There will also be internships and pathways to employment with IotaComm and CEWIT-affiliated companies.

“Through CEWIT and IotaComm, students will gain hands-on experience with real-time IoT data, network infrastructure and analytics,” said Kim Velez from IotaComm. “Guided by IotaComm Unity, our corporate social responsibility and impact arm, we’re building an ecosystem that connects research, innovation and social impact, from the lab to the classroom to the community.”

While the testbed begins at Stony Brook University (www.stonybrook.edu), the partners envision a regional IotaWave footprint spanning Long Island and the New York metro area, with opportunities to support municipal, education and enterprise deployments, and to showcase community-level impact in collaboration with local schools, utilities and public agencies. Complementary projects under discussion include water-level and flood-sensing in the Chapel Hill area, underscoring the model’s transferability to climate resilience challenges nationwide.

CEWIT (cewit.org) drives innovation through research, entrepreneurship and education. It accelerates the commercialisation of emerging technologies by supporting industry partners with technical assistance, student and faculty engagement, networking, and other services.

IotaComm (iotacomm.com) is building wireless connectivity for the IoT, leveraging a nationwide portfolio of FCC-licensed 800MHz radio spectrum communicating on LoRaWan. The firm is headquartered in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with operations in Allentown, Pennsylvania.