Grafana Dashboards for LoRaWAN Systems

Why Grafana for LoRaWAN

Grafana turns time-series sensor data into useful dashboards. Raw numbers in a database don't help anyone. Graphs showing temperature trends, gateway uptime, or water consumption patterns actually drive decisions.

Typical LoRaWAN Dashboard Elements

Device monitoring: Battery levels, signal strength (RSSI/SNR), last-seen timestamps, packet loss rates. Alerts when devices go offline or battery drops below threshold.

Gateway health: Uptime, packet counts, CPU/memory usage, backhaul connectivity. Multiple gateways on one map showing coverage areas.

Sensor data: Temperature, humidity, soil moisture, water flow - whatever your devices measure. Historical trends, current values, threshold violations.

Data Sources

InfluxDB (most common for LoRaWAN): Time-series database. Stores sensor readings with timestamps. Flux or InfluxQL queries. Fast for millions of data points.

Prometheus: More common for infrastructure monitoring (gateway CPU, network server metrics) than sensor data. Pull model vs InfluxDB's push model.

PostgreSQL/TimescaleDB: When you need relational features plus time-series. ChirpStack uses PostgreSQL for device registry - can query device info alongside sensor data.

APIs: Direct integration with ChirpStack API, TTN API, or custom application servers. Useful for device metadata that doesn't belong in time-series DB.

Dashboard Design

Bad dashboard: 50 panels showing every possible metric. Nobody looks at it.

Good dashboard: 6-8 key panels showing what you actually care about. Temperature + humidity on same graph (dual Y-axis). Current values as stat panels. Trends as line graphs.

Panel types:

• Time series graphs - temperature, moisture, consumption over time
• Stat panels - current battery level, last packet timestamp
• Gauge - soil moisture as percentage of field capacity
• Table - list of offline devices with last-seen time
• Geomap - gateway/device locations with status colors

Alerting

Alert when temperature exceeds threshold for 10+ minutes (not just one reading - prevents false alarms from sensor glitches).

Alert when device hasn't transmitted in 2x expected interval.

Alert when gateway drops offline.

Notifications: Email, Telegram, Slack, webhook to custom systems.

Query Optimization

Problem: Dashboard takes 30 seconds to load because you're querying 6 months of raw data.

Solution:

• Use InfluxDB downsampling/continuous queries
• Aggregate old data (5-minute averages instead of raw values)
• Limit dashboard time range to "last 24 hours" by default
• Let users manually select longer ranges if needed

Common mistake: Querying SELECT * FROM measurements without WHERE clauses. Always filter by time and device ID.

Variables for Multi-Site Deployments

Create dropdown to select site/gateway/device. One dashboard works for all locations instead of duplicating dashboard for each site.

Example: $device_id variable in query becomes WHERE device_id = '$device_id'

What I Provide

Services:

• Dashboard design for your specific metrics
• InfluxDB query optimization
• Alert rule configuration
• Integration with ChirpStack/TTN APIs
• Training on dashboard customization

You own everything:

• Dashboard JSON exports (import on any Grafana instance)
• Complete query documentation
• Self-hosted Grafana setup guidance
• No monthly fees