A battery lifetime comparison between LoraWAN and Wireless MBus smart meters

In this paper we consider the application of the LoRaWAN™ technology for metering purposes. We compare this technology with a well established technology for metering applications such as the WM-Bus. We take as key performance indicator the battery lifetime, keeping the same Quality of Service. The distinctive features of this paper is to collect real data from measurement campaigns in full fledged carrier grade networks and to consider two generations of meters from the same manufacturer. The results of the measurements show that the LoRaWAN meters outperforms the WMBus meters significantly as far as the battery lifetime is concerned.