In some Internet of Things (IoT) projects, the products related to IoT gateways are often involved. So what is the role of IoT gateways? What functions do IoT gateways have? At the same time, we also find that some IoT devices do not require a gateway. So when exactly do we need an IoT gateway?

The general architecture of the IoT consists of sensors, gateways, and platforms. Sensors are very rich in functionality according to application scenarios, such as air quality detection, temperature and humidity, pressure, vibration, light, and water immersion, etc. Different sensors can be configured according to different project needs.

The data obtained by the sensors generally needs to be sent to the IoT platform for big data analysis and display. Currently, depending on the project situation and user network environment, data can be uniformly uploaded to the IoT platform through 4G/5G, WIFI, local area networks, etc. However, in practice, if every sensor has 4G/5G or WIFI networking capabilities, the cost will be relatively high. To reduce costs in the future, in specific projects, wired methods or wireless methods such as LORA and Zigbee may be used to meet the deployment of sensors within the area, and then uniformly upload the data from these sensors to the platform.

In this case, IoT gateway devices are needed. For example, in a smart home environment, deploying smoke detectors, temperature and humidity sensors, human radar, access alarms, and other devices can use Zigbee wireless transmission to transmit within the house range, managed and aggregated by a Zigbee gateway, and then connected to the network via WIFI or Ethernet to transmit data to the IoT platform.

In some smart office and smart park projects, we may use LORA or wired methods to connect various wired and wireless sensors, and then aggregate data through the IoT gateway to upload to the platform.

So why are there many IoT projects that do not have gateways? For example, if we want to monitor meteorological information in a city, municipal water level information, construction site dust, etc. These monitoring points are widely distributed and covered. Generally, data is directly returned using NB-IoT, 5G, etc. without going through a gateway.

In summary, the application of IoT gateways mainly considers the following aspects.

In IoT, various devices and sensors may use different communication protocols and standards. IoT gateways can perform protocol conversion, allowing data from different devices to be uniformly processed and managed. This helps achieve interoperability between devices.

IoT gateways can collect data from multiple devices and sensors, aggregating and processing it. This helps reduce the amount of data transmitted, optimize network usage, and perform preliminary processing and analysis of data locally, reducing the burden on cloud processing.

IoT gateways play the role of edge computing in IoT systems, providing a certain level of security between devices and the cloud. They can implement basic security policies, such as data encryption, authentication, and access control, to ensure the security of IoT systems.

IoT gateways can manage the connection between devices and networks, handling device registration, connection, and disconnection operations. This is crucial for device management in large-scale IoT systems.

IoT gateways can make local decisions and take corresponding actions based on device status and sensor data without relying on the cloud. This helps improve response speed and reduce reliance on cloud services.

By preprocessing and filtering data locally, IoT gateways can reduce the amount of data that needs to be transmitted to the cloud, thus reducing energy consumption and network bandwidth usage.

Do you know the application scenarios and roles of gateways in IoT projects?