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An IoT gateway is a bridge between local sensor networks and the internet. A building with 50 LoRaWAN sensors does not need 50 internet connections – one gateway collects all their readings wirelessly and forwards them to a cloud platform over a single Ethernet or cellular link.
Beyond forwarding data, capable gateways also translate protocols (converting Modbus to MQTT, or LoRaWAN packets to HTTP), buffer data during connectivity loss, and in advanced models run edge analytics locally.
- Protocol translation – converts LoRaWAN, Modbus RTU, BLE, and RS485 into MQTT or HTTP for cloud platforms
- Data aggregation – collects readings from hundreds of sensors and batches them efficiently
- Local buffering – stores readings during WAN outages and retransmits when connectivity recovers
- Edge computing – advanced models run Node-RED or Python for local analytics and control