Ultra narrowband, ultra small
Sigfox sends tiny payloads over an ultra-narrowband link. Messages are a few bytes, sent infrequently, and the network handles the rest — no pairing, no local gateway, no configuration on the device.
That simplicity buys you range and battery life: a device can run for years on a small cell and reach tens of kilometres where the network exists.
Where it fits
Sigfox is not for streaming. It is for a sensor that reports a number once an hour — temperature, fill level, an open door, a moved asset. If the payload fits in a text message, it fits in Sigfox.
The constraint is coverage, which is regional. Where the network is present, the cost and complexity are hard to beat; where it is not, LoRa or NB-IoT becomes the better fit.
Designing for the uplink
The radio is a simple, well-understood front end. The real work is power budgeting and antenna behaviour in the field, because a device that sleeps for 59 minutes and transmits for one must be predictable in both states.
We treat each transmission as a system event: wake, measure, modulate, send, sleep. Get that loop right and a Sigfox device is nearly maintenance-free.
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