What a LoRaWAN Gateway Does

A LoRaWAN gateway is the bridge between battery-powered wireless sensors and the network. Sensors transmit small data packets on licence-exempt sub-GHz radio frequencies – in the UK, 868MHz. The gateway receives those packets simultaneously across 8 channels, deduplicates them, and forwards the data upstream via Ethernet or cellular to a network server and application platform.

A single 8-channel gateway installed at height – on a rooftop, a mast, or a wind turbine tower – can cover a radius of 2 to 5km in open terrain, collecting data from hundreds of sensors with no cable infrastructure required at the sensor end. For large sites, distributed outdoor spaces, or applications where wiring individual sensors is impractical, LoRaWAN is the collection technology that makes dense monitoring economically viable.

For a full introduction to LoRaWAN technology including how network topologies work and where it fits against cellular alternatives, see the LoRaWAN technology guide.

The Milesight Gateway Range

Node-RED Edge Computing on Milesight Gateways

All three Milesight gateway models include an embedded Node-RED runtime. This is not a separate device or a cloud dependency – it runs locally on the gateway itself. Node-RED is an open-source flow-based programming environment with over 4,000 community nodes covering protocols, data formats, and services. On a Milesight gateway it allows sensor data collected from LoRaWAN devices to be processed, transformed, filtered, and forwarded to downstream systems without leaving the gateway.

Practical applications include Modbus TCP or OPC-UA protocol bridging, MQTT publishing to a cloud platform, local alarm logic that triggers an output without requiring a round-trip to the cloud, and data formatting for specific SCADA or building management system endpoints. For a deeper look at how Node-RED integrates with the wider Milesight platform ecosystem, see the Milesight Development Platform explainer.

LoRaWAN Network Server – Standalone or Cloud

Each Milesight gateway includes a built-in LoRaWAN Network Server. This means the gateway can operate entirely standalone – authorising end devices, managing session keys, and delivering decoded sensor data to a local application or forwarding it to an MQTT broker, without any dependency on an external cloud LNS. For deployments with data sovereignty requirements or unreliable internet connectivity, this standalone capability is significant.

Alternatively, the gateway can operate in packet forwarder mode, passing raw LoRa packets to an external LNS such as The Things Network, ChirpStack, or the Milesight IoT Cloud. The Milesight IoT Cloud provides pre-built dashboards and automation rules for the full Milesight sensor range with no custom configuration required.

SIM Cards for the UG67

The UG67 requires an M2M or IoT SIM card in the standard nano-SIM format. For most industrial deployments, a multi-network roaming SIM provides the best coverage resilience – particularly for outdoor sites where the strongest available network may vary by location and weather conditions. For gateways that are managed remotely via the Milesight Development Platform, a standard dynamic IP SIM is sufficient for the management connection. A fixed IP SIM is needed only if inbound direct access to the gateway outside of the VPN management channel is required.

See the M2M and industrial SIM cards guide for SIM selection criteria, and the multi-network SIM page for coverage resilience options relevant to outdoor LoRaWAN gateway deployments.