As African agriculture faces mounting pressure to raise yields while cutting water and input costs, smart farming technology is no longer optional, it is essential. In regions where reliable cellular coverage remains patchy, LoRaWAN offers a compelling alternative: long-range, low-power connectivity that keeps farms connected even in the most remote corners of the continent.
Through its partnership with Dragino and HKT Technologies, Otto Wireless Solutions is building a complete smart farming ecosystem for South Africa and the broader African market, pairing rugged IoT sensors and livestock trackers with the ThingsEye.io platform for seamless, data-driven agriculture. As an ISO 9001:2015 certified, Level 2 BBBEE distributor established in 1990, Otto brings decades of local wireless expertise to every deployment, from single-farm pilots to multi-site rollouts.
“LoRaWAN is easy to use, lets farmers control their operations from anywhere, and turns data into bigger harvests and real revenue growth,” says Miyelani Kubayi, Technical Director at Otto Wireless Solutions.
From Manual Checks to Real-Time Decisions
Traditional farming relies on fixed schedules and manual inspections, often leading to wasted water, delayed responses and inconsistent yields. Dragino’s LoRaWAN-enabled sensors change that by continuously monitoring soil moisture, temperature and conductivity, leaf moisture, weather conditions, water pressure or flow, water levels, and other key parameters, enabling precision irrigation and smarter crop management.
Smarter Livestock Management with HKT Technologies
Crops are only half the picture. Livestock represents a major share of farm value, and HKT Technologies’ LoRaWAN-enabled tracking devices extend the same real-time visibility to animals across the herd.
Ear tags are lightweight, low-power devices clipped to the animal’s ear that transmit location and identification data over long distances, helping farmers quickly locate stray or missing animals across large grazing areas.
Collars worn around the neck combine GPS and LoRaWAN positioning with motion sensing to track grazing patterns, activity levels and herd movement, flagging unusual behaviour that can signal illness, stress or predator activity.
Bio-capsules are ingestible LoRaWAN devices that reside inside the animal to monitor internal indicators such as body temperature and activity, offering an early warning of health issues and supporting more accurate breeding and calving management.
Together, these devices give farmers a continuous stream of location, activity, health and breeding data, reducing losses from theft, straying and undetected illness, while supporting better-informed breeding decisions, all without needing cellular coverage in the field. Data from every ear tag, collar and bio-capsule flows into the same ThingsEye.io dashboard used for crop monitoring, giving farmers one unified view of their entire operation, livestock and land alike.
Why LoRaWAN Suits African Farms
LoRaWAN is built for exactly these conditions: coverage of up to 10 km, multi-year battery life, optional solar power, no SIM cards required on sensors, and reliable performance in remote, low-connectivity areas. A single gateway can connect hundreds of sensors and trackers, making large-scale deployments both scalable and cost-effective.
Rugged, Accurate Devices Built for Agriculture
Dragino’s device range includes the SE01 for soil moisture, temperature and conductivity, the SPH01 for soil pH, the SDI-12 converter for integrating existing sensors, and the LMS01 for leaf moisture, giving farmers the data needed for precision irrigation and early stress detection.
Its WSC2 weather station and temperature and humidity sensors help manage microclimates and greenhouse conditions.
The SW3L water flow sensor, water level sensors and LT22222 irrigation control switch support fully automated irrigation, vital in drought-affected regions.
Dragino LoRaWAN gateways tie the whole network together.
ThingsEye.io: Turning Data into Action
The ThingsEye.io platform is the central hub for the entire ecosystem, offering real-time dashboards and alerts, QR-based device onboarding, automated irrigation scheduling, up to five years of historical data, and mobile access via Android or iOS. It supports LoRaWAN, NB-IoT, LTE-M and cellular or LTE connectivity, letting farmers monitor crops and livestock from a single screen, wherever they are.
Proven Results, now in Africa
Globally, Dragino-powered deployments have delivered water savings of up to 22%, improved crop yields and reduced labour and monitoring costs. Farms using HKT’s ear tags, collars and bio-capsules report faster recovery of lost or stolen animals and earlier detection of health problems, cutting losses that once went unnoticed until it was too late. Otto Wireless Solutions is now bringing these same benefits, plus HKT’s livestock intelligence, to farms across South Africa and the wider continent.
Building Africa’s Smart Farming Future
With Dragino and HKT’s LoRaWAN devices, the ThingsEye.io platform, and local support from Otto Wireless Solutions, smart farming covering both crops and livestock is more accessible than ever. The result is a more connected, efficient and sustainable agricultural future, where farmers can make better decisions, conserve resources and maximise productivity.
Together, we are building Africa’s future, one smart field and one smart herd at a time.
Contact Otto Wireless Solutions for orders or more information
Email: wireless@otto.co.za
Phone: +27 (0)11 791 1033
Website: www.otto.co.za
