LoRaWAN GPS Tracker: Can You Track Assets Without a SIM Card?

A trailer sits in the yard over the weekend, a site container moves to a new job every few weeks, a cage of expensive tools should not disappear without anyone noticing. Many people then look for a tracker with no SIM card, because a SIM in every device means recurring fees, contract admin and often a battery that needs regular charging. The short answer: yes, a LoRaWAN GPS tracker does exactly that. It determines its position by satellite and sends it, with no SIM, to a LoRaWAN gateway that passes the data over the internet to your application.

The catch belongs in the same breath: without network coverage, no position reaches you. Either your own gateway is within range, or you use a public LoRaWAN network such as The Things Network. Where neither exists, the tracker can at best collect positions and deliver them once it is back in range. Whether LoRaWAN is the right choice for your asset or a 4G tracker fits better therefore comes down almost entirely to where the asset goes.

What is a LoRaWAN GPS tracker?

A LoRaWAN GPS tracker combines two separate jobs in one housing. A satellite receiver works out the position, and a LoRa radio transmits it. LoRaWAN is a radio protocol for small data packets over long distances at very low power. In Europe it uses the license-free 868 MHz band, so no SIM card or cellular contract is involved. Each packet holds only a few bytes: coordinates, battery level, perhaps an alarm. Gateways within range receive these packets and forward them over their internet connection to a network server, which in turn hands them to your map or platform.

The Milesight AT101 is a good example of what goes into such a device. It uses GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and BeiDou at the same time and, according to the manufacturer, reaches an accuracy of about 5 meters with a clear view of the sky. It also scans nearby Wi-Fi access points and reports their identifiers and signal strengths. That helps where satellites are hard to receive, inside a warehouse, for instance. The AT101 never joins a Wi-Fi network; it only reads what is around it. To turn that list into a position, your application needs a service that translates access points into coordinates.

The housing is rated IP67, measures 110 × 70 × 30 mm and weighs 202 g with batteries. It can be fixed with screws, adhesive tape or a cable tie. A common mistake at the buying stage: a LoRaWAN GPS tracker is not a live tracker like a smartphone app. It reports its position at intervals of minutes to hours, and that is precisely what it is built for.

GPS tracker without a SIM card: how does it work?

Without a SIM, the tracker never registers with a cell tower. It simply broadcasts its packet, every gateway in range that belongs to a suitable network picks it up, and the network server removes duplicates and decrypts the data for your application. The real question is who provides those gateways. With LoRaWAN you pay for the device once, and there is no SIM with a monthly data plan per tracker. What remains depends on whose network you use.

The Things Network is a community-run network whose basic tier is free. In return, a fair use policy applies: each device gets at most 30 seconds of uplink airtime per day and a maximum of ten downlinks daily. There is no uptime guarantee, because many gateways are run voluntarily by individuals, clubs or companies. Alongside it, some municipal utilities and commercial operators run public LoRaWAN networks that charge per device. That is a subscription again, but usually a much smaller one than a cellular plan.

With your own gateway you shift the cost from the trackers to the infrastructure: a one-time purchase in the low to mid three-figure range, power, and an internet connection via Ethernet, Wi-Fi or a cellular router. In the last case there is a SIM card in the system after all, but one for any number of trackers instead of one per device. Then there are batteries: the AT101 runs on four replaceable ER14505 lithium thionyl chloride cells rated at 2,700 mAh each. And you need an application that shows positions on a map. The network server delivers only raw data, which you push into a dashboard via webhook or MQTT.

If you are searching more broadly for a GPS tracker with no subscription, you will come across other approaches too. With LoRaWAN, “no subscription” only holds while you use The Things Network or your own infrastructure.

LoRaWAN vs 4G tracker: which should you choose?

The Teltonika TAT240 makes a good counterpart to the AT101. It communicates over LTE Cat 1 with fallback to GSM, so it needs a SIM card with a data plan. In return it works anywhere there is cellular coverage, and with a suitable roaming SIM across borders as well. Power comes from a non-rechargeable, swappable lithium thionyl chloride battery with 2,200 mAh. The housing is rated IP68, a magnet holds it to steel surfaces, and according to Teltonika its 128 MB of internal memory holds around 220,000 records. Over Bluetooth LE it can also read compatible sensors.

The table compares both devices on the points that decide the choice in practice:

That leads to a simple rule of thumb. The LoRaWAN tracker plays to its strengths when many assets move within a known area: a depot, a company campus, a construction site with its own gateway, or a city with good public coverage. The 4G tracker fits when assets travel long distances or cross borders and you need to reach them reliably there. The most common mistake is comparing device prices alone. A cheap tracker with no network at the most important parking spot is worthless for that job.

What is the range of a LoRaWAN tracker?

Milesight specifies up to 2 km in urban areas and up to 15 km in rural areas for the AT101. Figures like these assume good conditions with as clear a line of sight as possible between tracker and gateway. The range you actually get from a LoRaWAN tracker depends on a few factors you can influence yourself.

Gateway antenna height matters most. A gateway on a roof or mast covers many times the area of one behind an office window. At the other end, the tracker often sits in a poor spot: just above the ground, on a trailer drawbar, between pallets. Its antenna is small and built into the housing. Metal is the critical factor. Hardly any signal escapes a closed steel container, so mount the tracker on an outside wall or in an area that is not fully enclosed by metal.

Then there is the spreading factor. The higher it is, the longer the range, but the longer each transmission takes and the more energy it costs. Networks often adjust the spreading factor automatically to the link quality. In built-up areas, plan realistically with a few hundred meters up to a few kilometers. Only a test makes it reliable: take the tracker in its final mounting position to the critical spots and check in the network server whether packets arrive and what signal strength and signal-to-noise ratio look like.

Do you need your own gateway for a LoRaWAN tracker?

Not necessarily. Before you buy one, check the coverage that already exists. The Things Network shows registered gateways on a map, and the community project TTN Mapper collects drive tests that show where packets were actually received. Some cities also have a public LoRaWAN network run by the local utility. If your yard sits in the middle of a well-covered area, a tracker can work without any hardware of your own.

Rely on that only to a degree. Community gateways can vanish at any time when their owner moves or pulls the plug. Your own gateway is therefore worth it as soon as the assets mostly stay on your own premises, when reliability matters, or when you run several trackers and sensors. A single gateway can serve a very large number of devices, so the investment spreads quickly. You can connect it to The Things Network and improve public coverage in your area at the same time, or run your own network server.

Location decides the setup. A typical mistake is an indoor gateway in the office behind coated windows while the trailers are parked behind the warehouse. An outdoor unit, or at least an external antenna in a high position with a view of the parking areas, works much better. The gateway itself needs power and an internet connection.

How long does a LoRaWAN tracker battery last?

For the AT101, Milesight gives lab figures at 25 °C, explicitly as a guideline: more than 15 years with two position reports per day, more than 8 years with ten reports, and more than 4 years with hourly reports. Reporting frequency clearly drives battery life more than any other setting.

In daily use, satellite positioning eats most of the energy. According to the manufacturer, the AT101 needs about 37 seconds for a cold start and about one second with current satellite data. If the tracker sits under a roof or between containers, positioning attempts take longer or fail and repeat. A high spreading factor because of a long distance to the gateway also stretches every transmission. Cold reduces the usable capacity of the cells; the AT101 is designed to operate from −30 to +70 °C. And a motion mode that reports every few minutes during each trip uses many times more than two fixed reports a day.

For the TAT240, the Teltonika wiki gives no blanket battery life figure; it depends entirely on the configuration. As a general rule, a cellular connection costs considerably more energy per report than a short LoRa packet. For both devices, plan battery replacement with a margin and keep an eye on the battery level the tracker sends along.

How often does a LoRaWAN tracker report its position?

As often as you set it to, within the limits of battery and network. The AT101 has three operating modes. In periodic mode it reports at a fixed interval between one minute and 24 hours. In timing mode it sends at up to five fixed times a day. In motion mode it reports when an asset starts moving and when it stops, and it can additionally send positions at a separate interval while moving.

The radio network sets the limits. In the European 868 MHz band, a device may transmit only about one percent of the time, depending on the sub-band. On The Things Network the fair use policy adds its 30 seconds of airtime per day. Close to the gateway at a low spreading factor that is enough for hundreds of small packets; at the edge of coverage with the highest spreading factor it drops to roughly 20 to 30. A report every minute therefore only works with a good link.

One point matters for remote commands: the AT101 is a Class A device. It can receive messages from the server only briefly after one of its own transmissions. A changed setting therefore takes effect at the next report at the earliest. If you need a position every few seconds, say for live vehicle tracking, LoRaWAN is the wrong tool.

Does a LoRaWAN tracker work on the move?

Yes, as long as it moves through coverage. A trailer on its way from the depot to a construction site reports whenever a gateway is within range. In cities with dense community coverage that often works in stretches; on country roads and highways in rural regions, longer gaps appear.

For those gaps, the AT101 has a buffer for up to 1,000 entries and can resend data once the network is reachable again. A position delivered late is not a timely warning, though: if an asset is taken outside coverage, you only find out when it comes back within range of a gateway. On your own premises, the AT101’s geofencing feature helps. It reports when an asset leaves a defined zone, and that alert can still go out through your gateway before the trailer is out of range.

Networks do exchange traffic, for example through the Packet Broker, which lets The Things Network share data with other networks. That is not blanket coverage for all of Europe, however. If your asset regularly crosses several countries and you need current positions there, a 4G tracker like the TAT240 is the more dependable choice.

Where can you buy a LoRaWAN GPS tracker?

Start with the question of where your asset actually spends its time. If the yard, warehouse or site is within range of your own gateway or a public network, LoRaWAN is a very frugal option with no data plan per device. Verify coverage with a test in the final mounting position, especially near metal. Then decide how current a position needs to be, because the reporting interval drives battery life and network load alike. Look at the positioning methods: GNSS outdoors, Wi-Fi scanning as a helper inside buildings. A buffer with resend fills gaps in the history but does not replace a real-time alert. And do the math honestly: a LoRaWAN GPS tracker saves you the cellular plan, but it needs a network, an application and the occasional set of new batteries. If the asset travels across Europe, a 4G device is the better pick. If you are looking for a suitable tracker, you can find our models in the Trackers category.