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Device Connectivity: A Strategic Foundation for IoT Success

Selecting the right device connectivity protocol is one of the most critical decisions in the IoT design process. Because connectivity impacts both hardware selection and software architecture, these decisions must be made early to avoid costly pivots during IoT deployment.

At Witekio, we view connectivity not just as a “pipe” for data, but as a system-wide integration that affects power consumption, battery life, and real-time data reliability. To ensure your IoT solution is robust, several criteria must be reviewed at each stage of the build flow to ensure the product’s behavior aligns with its intended use case.

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Main Decisions in Device Connectivity Design

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Localization and Environment

Where will your IoT devices live? A device in a smart home, a commercial building, or an industrial facility has vastly different requirements than a “thing” in a remote area.

  • Indoor vs. Outdoor: Indoor devices may rely on Wi-Fi or short-range protocols, while remote devices need Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN).
  • Mobility: If the device is part of a mobile transportation unit, it requires cellular networks that can handle handovers between towers without losing the data flow.
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    Contexts of Use and Reliability

    Some IoT applications need to send data very frequently with non-critical payloads that may sometimes be lost. On the contrary, other device connection types may emit telemetry less regularly but require that every bit of information is retrieved with measurable confidence. The overall robustness of the data pipeline is the key to providing reliable connectivity.
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    Security as a Multi-Faceted Concern

    The adage “We have nothing to hide” is still used too often, focusing only on confidentiality. However, security for connected devices encompasses much more: integrity, availability, and authenticity. Security advice for cloud connectivity and data transfers must be woven into the design from day one.
    Velan IoT connectivity

    SUCCESS STORY

    Ensuring Velan's Industrial Valve Connectivity

    Velan’s new range of connected valves gives users up-to-date, accurate telemetry, thanks to Witekio’s device connectivity and app development expertise.
    • A custom-built, Windows IoT platform to migrate data from the sensors to a data lake.
    • A web application with an intuitive GUI.
    • Security advice for data transfers, cloud connectivity and more.
    Read

    Mastering the Technical Stack: Communication Protocols

    The OSI network model is well known to engineers, but its “onion-shape” structure—where each upper layer depends on the guarantees of the lower layer—makes it non-trivial to master holistically.

    Embedded developers focus on the data and link layers (close to the metal), while application and cloud developers rely on those physical decisions to meet business needs. To choose the right device connectivity service, we must look at the technical solutions across the distance spectrum.

    LoRaWAN, Sigfox, or NB-IoT shine for fleets of IoT devices spread across geographical areas hundreds of miles wide.
  • Use Cases: Heavy machinery, mining equipment, weather stations, or agricultural vehicles.
  • Trade-offs: These protocols are incredibly energy-efficient (perfect for battery-powered devices) but do not allow for heavy data payloads.

    • At the opposite end, some devices only need to communicate within a radius of a few centimeters to a few meters.

  • Technologies: NFC/RFID, Ultra-Wideband (UWB), Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), or ZigBee.
  • The Role of Gateways: Data is delivered to a paired device, like a smartphone or a local gateway, before being forwarded to the back-end.
  • Reliability: Where possible, wireless can be substituted for traditional solutions like RJ45 Ethernet or USB to increase system connectivity stability over the long run.

    If possible, wireless solutions can also be substituted to more traditional ones to increase the reliability of connections. A device which can accept an RJ45 Ethernet or a USB cable in place of WiFi, has better chance to be less troublesome in the long run.
    • If a device operates in urban areas, the latest generation of cellular networks (5G and LTE-M) delivers on the promises of low latency and high bandwidth. This involves managing SIM cards (physical or eSIM) and navigating the financial complexities of roaming and telco contracts for thousands of devices connected across borders.

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    The Pillars of Internet Exchange: TCP, UDP, and IP

    IoT solutions rely on the strong foundations of the internet.

    • UDP vs. TCP: UDP datagrams are suitable for “fire and forget,” non-critical messages. However, the acknowledgement obligations of TCP are often non-negotiable for robust data collection.
    • IPv4 vs. IPv6: Despite address exhaustion, IPv4 is still alive thanks to NAT support. However, if nodes can “speak” IPv6, it provides a net advantage for remote diagnostics and targeting specific nodes in a crowded IoT network.

    HTTP is a stateless protocol that is highly effective for device-to-cloud telemetry.
  • Versatility: It supports various formats, from binary Protobuf to JSON.
  • OTA Updates: For “Over-the-Air” updates, HTTP supports range responses, which help resume or chunk large package downloads.
  • HTTP/3: Utilizing the QUIC layer, the latest version of HTTP can be put to good use in specific high-performance contexts.
    • For persistent and lightweight connections, MQTT is the better alternative. Just past its 25-year mark, MQTT (especially version 5) is more relevant than ever. It enables bi-directional, topic-based broadcasting, which is essential for quasi-real-time remote-procedure calls across a fleet.

    Security facets of device connectivity

    A single bit change in a payload can have dreadful consequences for how a measurement is interpreted. Even worse, poisonous messages could be crafted to compromise the receiver.

    Authenticity is critical for both parts of the network. Just as a human trusts a bank website’s certificate, connectivity devices must trust the server. Brokers should only establish device connections with identities that have been verified via:

  • Shared Secrets: Common in development stages.
  • Client Certificates (X.509): The robust solution for production.
  • Hardware Security: Private keys must be protected at all costs using a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) or Hardware Security Module (HSM), acting as an impenetrable vault.

    • Setting up a chain of trust requires a PKI. While the “happy path” is easy to implement, an expert must plan for the “what ifs”:

  • What happens when a certificate expires?
  • What if a device is compromised?
  • What if the private authority key leaks?

    • Witekio’s Golden Rule: Never roll your own cryptographic primitives. It is too easy to “shoot yourself in the foot” by trying to reinvent the wheel. Battle-tested cipher suites must be used and deprecated when they are no longer secure.

    Navigating Cloud Connectivity & Ownership

    In this joint session with Avnet, Witekio’s cloud and embedded experts discuss the “table stakes” of modern device connectivity. Learn how to balance edge vs. cloud processing, navigate new US cybersecurity regulations (NIST), and manage the full device life cycle—from secure provisioning to decommissioning.
    Watch

    Ready to connect?

    From Velan’s industrial valves to complex smart city deployments, Witekio provides the device connectivity service expertise needed to migrate data from sensors to the cloud securely. Our team ensures that your IoT solution is not just connected, but optimized for the long term.
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    FAQ: IoT Device Connectivity & Integration

    For devices where battery life is the priority, LoRaWAN or NB-IoT are excellent choices due to their low power consumption. For shorter ranges, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is the standard.
    We focus on a “co-construction” of software. This includes choosing the right antenna design, implementing robust retry logic in the software, and selecting protocols like MQTT that handle unstable connections gracefully.
    Yes, 5G is specifically designed for high data speed and low latency, making it suitable for real-time data applications. However, it requires careful management of energy consumption.
    Predictive maintenance often requires sending high-resolution vibration or acoustic data. Choosing a protocol with sufficient data throughput ensures the cloud-based AI can accurately detect patterns before a failure occurs.

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