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UnaBiz France & Orange Business, Weenat Boost Agricultural Efficiency for Over 30,000 Farmers with IoT Sensors Connected on the Sigfox 0G Network and LoRaWAN

Challenges

Weenat needed a scalable, energy-efficient, reliable, and cost-effective network connectivity solution, even in areas without cellular service, to enable the commercial viability of its leading precision agriculture technologies for farmers.

Solution

Partnering with UnaBiz France and Orange Business, Weenat has rapidly deployed over 30,000 IoT-enabled agro-weather sensors using unlicensed low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) technologies – 15,000 on the Sigfox 0G Network and 15,000 on LoRaWAN – to deliver precision agriculture solutions to a growing number of farmers worldwide.

Results

• Enhance speed and accuracy of data collection
• Save costs
• Scale easily and rapidly
• Add value to existing customer offerings
• Scale efficiently to support rapid growth
• Improve customer experiences

Every day, farmers who manage the crops and livestock that nourish the world wake up thinking about the weather. While sunny skies and gentle rains nurture bumper crops, adverse weather, like drying winds, drought, frost, humidity, or too much rain, can ruthlessly destroy crop yields within hours.

Traditional weather forecasts usually fail to capture the localised climate variations that farmers need and rarely share meaningful insights into hyper-local agricultural information, such as soil temperature, sunlight angles, and humidity impact on leaf wetness. Agro-weather sensors help bridge this gap by giving farmers precise, local environmental and crop condition data. However, agro-weather sensors depend on reliable network connectivity, and many agricultural areas, especially remote areas or “white zones” lack traditional network coverage.

Weenat is a leading provider of Internet of Things (IoT) agro-weather sensors. The company empowers farmers with precise, real-time data on soil conditions, crop health, and environmental factors. Such insights let farmers make proactive, data-driven decisions optimising productivity and supporting profitable agricultural operations. Weenat designed hybrid IoT sensors to capture data that switch smoothly between LPWAN networks, according to the best network availability across a farmer’s property. To expand its solutions to more farmers internationally, Weenat needed long-range, energy-efficient, cost-effective, scalable network connectivity that was available even in areas without traditional coverage.

Reliable, scalable, sustainable: How Weenat uses the UnaBiz France 0G Network to inform precision agriculture

Weenat partnered with UnaBiz France and Orange Business to connect its leading agro-weather IoT sensors to two complementary low-power wide-area networks (LPWAN): the 0G Network, powered by Sigfox 0G technology, and LoraWAN, enabled by Orange Business. Both networks provide low-power, long-range, cost-effective communication solutions specifically for IoT solutions, which typically transmit small bytes of data from remote monitoring sensors at periodic intervals.

Among the two, the Sigfox-powered 0G Network stands out for its global reach and scalability. As a public, long-range, energy-efficient network purpose-built for massive IoT, the 0G Network is now available in over 70 countries, covering more than one billion people. This widespread coverage enables Weenat to deploy reliable IoT solutions even in rural or hard-to-reach areas where traditional cellular networks fall short.

The engineers at Weenat specifically designed every sensor for harsh agricultural environments and built them to withstand harsh weather conditions, impact shock, and tampering from curious animals or humans.

Installation is simple and considers mobility, allowing farmers to move sensors around a property to measure different conditions. Farmers can place sensors directly in the soil, attach sensors to existing structures such as fences. Although every farm differs, Weenat recommends one weather station every seven kilometers and around six tensiometers per irrigation sector for optimal insights.

Once installed, connecting sensors to the LPWAN takes minutes: farmers activate the solution by scanning the barcode on the sensor. Then, every 15 minutes, each connected device shares data over the locally available LPWAN with a central database that populates the Weenat app with hyper-local farm insights.

Today, Weenat’s precision agriculture solutions analyse more than one billion IoT data points daily. Over 30,000 farmers across 15 countries rely on its solutions to better inform daily decision-making. Weenat’s business is thriving with its compelling value proposition of low-cost, long-range, energy-efficient, reliable, real-time data collection and sharing powered by IoT devices connected to LPWANs. 

Best of all, its customers use data-driven insights to make better decisions around allocating precious resources and targeting operational efficiencies that improve seasonal yields and meet regulatory requirements governing food quality and provenance. Farmers enjoy benefits daily, including:

Time savings by replacing physical field visits with app insights

Cost savings

Reliable, precise irrigation control

Efficient use of health interventions by optimising application at ideal times

Proactive crop protection

Much more rest

"Thanks to the reliable, low-cost public LPWAN coverage provided by UnaBiz France and Orange Business, we can confidently deploy our sensors in remote farming areas and provide farmers with meaningful, real-time data to improve day-to-day decision-making, without worrying about white zones, complicated infrastructure  and unsustainable costs. For more than 10 years, these technologies have helped more than 30,000 farmers to save time, work more comfortably and save on inputs." said Louis Cognet, Deputy General Manager at Weenat

The future of agriculture: farms thriving on data from Weenat IoT solutions.

Weenat continues to empower farmers globally by accelerating its international expansion, using the 0G Network to scale and connect sensors in areas where traditional networks don’t yet exist or cannot provide reliable connectivity.

"In agricultural industries, reliable, cost-effective connectivity is crucial for real-time data collection from connected sensors. The proven network availability of converging two robust LPWANs, even in remote areas and across difficult terrain, has proven transformative for the solutions Weenat delivers to farmers. By enabling precision agriculture, low-power, long-range, low-cost networks help farmers remove the guesswork from daily operations and improve the use of precious resources to create sustainable, profitable farming that benefits consumers globally." Arnaud Tayac, Managing Director at UnaBiz France

 

The company continually researches and trials innovative precision agriculture technologies and data transmission strategies to create new value for farmers everywhere.

Marie-Françoise Ratron, a wine grower in France, says, “The Weenat frost sensor tells me when to switch my tools on and when to call my team. I get nearly an hour and a half more sleep every night, which really makes a difference.”

Orange Business plays a key role in advancing connected agriculture in France through its partnership with Weenat. By providing LoRaWAN connectivity, Orange Business ensures reliable data transmission for smart sensors, enabling efficient crop monitoring. With coverage spanning over 95% of the French population and more than 30,000 municipalities, its LoRaWAN network forms a core component of Orange Business’s IoT strategy. This robust offering also includes international cellular connectivity (4G/5G), further driving innovation in the agricultural sector.
The complementarity of LPWAN technologies—LoRaWAN within France and LTE-M both in France and internationally—positions Orange Business as a leading player in connected agriculture on a global scale. Pierre-François Valton, Commercial Director IoT & Mobile Private Network at Orange Business

 

SOURCE: UnaBiz