During the last few years the Internet of Things (IoT) gained popularity among a growing number of people all around the world. This is a fast growing network segment that includes all kinds of connected and possibly smart devices in our daily lives – from household appliances, to smart sensors, connected cars, intelligent homes and even clothes or digital tattoos.

IoT can change our lives in many ways adding better understanding and control of our homes, offices, utility networks, public infrastructure as well as farms and factories. It can save us a lot of time, help increase our productivity, improve the energy efficiency of our equipment, and a lot more. Only it rarely does.

Although IoT is gaining new customers and growing fast, it’s still not this next mass adopted digital segment that can be. The next smartphones if you will. I mean, controlling your smart thermostat on the go or having a connected watch that shows your viber messages is definitely cool. But IoT has much greater potential and it really doesn’t reach it.

There are various challenges but maybe the most important one is the connectivity. In order to unleash their potential and to become really smart, all those new devices need to be connected, of course.

Nowadays there are several network technologies aiming to do this and maybe the most promising between all of them is LoRaWAN. This is a cloud network protocol, based on LoRa and supported by the LoRa Alliance. LoRaWAN grants coverage of 2 km in urban areas and up to 15 km in rural areas.

It has a lot of characteristics important for the development of the Internet of Things ecosystem – energy efficiency, end-to-end security, mobility, etc. Therefore many experts point to this technology as a potential engine for the faster development of IoT. Except this faster development still isn’t visible. Almost 10 years after the creation of LoRaWAN protocol it’s still waiting for a killer application that will boost its wider implementation around us. The iPhone momentum if we continue the comparison with the smartphone market.

And it seems like this killer app is already here. It’s called Helium and it’s a real global wireless network, including already over 250 000 hotspots. They call it the People’s network, cause it’s fully decentralized, consisting of thousands of independent owners of LoRaWAN hotspots.

Combining a cutting edge IoT technology with the fast growing blockchain segment, Helium motivates the owners of hotspot miners allowing them to earn it’s own cryptocurrency – HNT. Every hotspot generates HNTs when it’s operating and connected to other Helium gateways. This is a fast growing new market allowing every company or person in the world to earn passive income while participating in the development of a new generation of global network.

Helium is already creating a whole new ecosystem of service providers, manufacturers of smart devices, system integrators and numerous startups in the field of smart home, smart city, connected farms and factories, etc.

With hotspots in almost every major city in the world and thousands of dedicated hotspot owners Helium looks like the next big thing in the wireless communications market. And its full potential in the field of connected devices, sensors and smart infrastructure is yet to be seen.