LPWAN SOLUTIONS
Soil Moisture Monitoring
Advanced, reliable, and eco-friendly solution to promote precision agriculture and efficient water utilization using near real-time soil moisture data.
Improved precision in agriculture
Efficient water conservation strategy
Near Real-time moisture data analysis
Reduced operational expenses.
Solution
The Soil Moisture Monitoring Solution provides near-real-time root-zone volumetric water content (VWC), soil temperature profile dynamics, salinity tracking, and irrigation scheduling analytics across agricultural fields, orchards, vineyards, and research plots without the expense or complexity of traditional wired telemetry. Utilizing high-precision multi-sensor probes and dedicated LTE Cat-M1 cellular connectivity, the system continuously logs soil condition profiles across multiple depths and arrives fully pre-configured out of the box to automatically stream encrypted sensor telemetry directly to the Ellenex Software Platform.
This IoT-driven precision agriculture solution offers key operational benefits:
Zero-Touch Plug-and-Play Setup: Shipped fully pre-programmed for immediate field deployment in under 5 minutes without requiring local software setup, driver downloads, or manual developer provisioning.
Utility-Grade Cellular Connectivity: Direct-to-tower LTE Cat-M1 cellular transmission ensures long-range propagation across spread-out agricultural fields without local gateway hardware.
High-Frequency Multi-Depth Profiling: Employs Frequency Domain Reflectometry (FDR) capacitance sensing with integrated sensors placed at 10cm vertical intervals to measure Volumetric Water Content (VWC %) and temperature simultaneously across depth zones.
Weatherproof Field Housing: Built with a multi-depth soil probe paired with an IP66 UV-stabilized transmitter enclosure engineered to withstand direct field exposure and farm weathering.
Low Total Cost of Ownership: Powered by an internal replaceable 3.6V Lithium battery combined with ultra-low-power firmware management to achieve maintenance-free operational lifespans of up to 10 years.
Rapid Capital Return: Accelerates ROI by optimizing irrigation application, preventing crop water stress, reducing fertilizer leaching, and conserving farm water supplies. Learn More
Easy Install
Pre-Configured
Secure
Quick ROI
Rugged Design
Battery Operated
Efficient soil moisture monitoring is key to sustainable agriculture and water resource management, ensuring a secure food supply for a growing global population. Our Remote Soil Moisture Monitoring Solution provides a comprehensive approach to intelligent irrigation management and agronomic decision-making. By leveraging cutting-edge technology in multi-depth capacitance probes and long-range Cat-M1 cellular telemetry, farmers, agronomists, and irrigation managers can track, control, and optimize water application strategies in real time. The result is a future-proof solution that not only addresses current operational challenges—eliminating soil water stress and reducing fertilizer leaching—but also adapts to the changing demands of agricultural compliance, ultimately protecting crop quality, operational budgets, and farm water resources.
Connecting broadacre crops, fruit orchards, and vineyards to a central digital network transforms static farm fields into an intelligent agronomic monitoring network. By streaming continuous multi-depth soil moisture data directly to a cloud dashboard, growers gain total visibility over root-zone infiltration and water table dynamics.
Resource Sustainability
Continuous multi-depth moisture profiling directly conserves agricultural water resources by replacing guesswork with data-driven irrigation scheduling. By identifying exact refill and full points across active root zones, the Soil Moisture Monitoring Solution prevents over-watering, eliminates deep percolation losses, and stops nitrogen fertilizer from leaching into underground aquifers. Optimizing water application cuts irrigation pump runtimes, drastically reducing electrical power consumption and supporting sustainable farming practices.
Battery-Powered Multi-Depth Soil Moisture And Temperature Monitoring With Cat-M1 Cellular Connectivity For Precision Agriculture And Irrigation.
Core Operational Capabilities
Multi-Depth Soil Profiling Probe (Integrated Sensors at 10cm Vertical Intervals)
Simultaneous Measurement of Volumetric Water Content (VWC) and Soil Temperature
High-Precision High-Frequency Capacitance / FDR Sensing Technology
LoRaWAN / NB-IoT / LTE-M
IP68 Submersible Sensor
IP66 UV-Protected Enclosure
Up to 10-Year Battery Life
Cloud / API / SCADA Integration
Smart Soil Moisture Monitoring with Ellenex Battery-Operated Soil Probe Sensors
MM-S
Efficient soil moisture monitoring is key to sustainable agriculture and water resource management, ensuring a secure food supply for a growing global population.
Industrial Outdoor LoRaWAN Gateway Specifications
For customers deploying the LoRaWAN package, the high-performance industrial gateway provides complete self-managed coverage. It is pre-configured to forward packet data to the Ellenex Platform.
System Architecture
The integrated Solution telemetry platform is designed around a dual-LPWAN (Low Power Wide Area Network) hardware architecture, giving operators the flexibility to deploy either LoRaWAN or cellular-based (supporting NB-IoT and LTE Cat M1) network configurations depending on local infrastructure and regional topology. Both communication technologies represent the cutting edge of industrial IoT, designed to penetrate challenging physical barriers and achieve multi-kilo meter propagation distances while maintaining extremely low electrical current draws.
The Ellenex telemetry pipeline follows a streamlined 4-step end-to-end data flow designed to give customers total choice over their network infrastructure and software platform:
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Sensor: The single Ellenex battery-powered field device directly measures physical parameters, digitizes analog signals, applies factory calibration parameters, packages telemetry into AES-128 encrypted payloads, and manages low-power sleep modes within a unified unit. Learn More:
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Wireless Infrastructure Options:
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Option A (LoRaWAN Option): Transmits sub-GHz radio packets to an Ellenex Pre-Configured Outdoor Gateway. The gateway acts as a transparent Layer-1/Layer-2 RF-to-IP bridge. Learn More
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Option B (Cellular NB-IoT / LTE-M Option): Transmits encrypted telemetry directly across licensed 3GPP cellular networks to public mobile base station towers. Learn More.
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3. Network Core & Data Routing Layer: Encrypted sub-GHz packets are securely routed from the gateway to the Ellenex Network Server (LNS). The LNS manages crucial network functions—including device authentication, payload decryption, and frame deduplication—ensuring clean, secure sensor data is seamlessly delivered to Ellenex Software Platform.
4. Data Processing & Platform Visualization: All telemetry is ingested, decoded, and visualized seamlessly within the Ellenex Cloud Software Platform. The software transforms raw sensor data into actionable insights through real-time dashboards, historical trend analysis, threshold alerting, and device health management.
Connectivity & Visualisation Platform
With its advanced features and ease of use, Ellenex’s software platform enables effective monitoring and management of remote operations—ensuring efficient, sustainable, and reliable resource management.
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Encrypted ultra-low power communication protocol.
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Advanced device inventory.
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Integration of APIs for enterprise systems.
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Multi-tenant role-based access control.
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Data export and import.
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White-label platform for enterprise runs on private accounts.
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Variable alarm setting for high and low thresholds and multi-channel alerting.
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Sampling and transmission interval configuration.
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Transmission condition configuration.
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Other configurations and customizations available on request.
Ellenex's software platform is a comprehensive, user-friendly solution specifically designed for remote monitoring and management.
The platform offers a robust range of features tailored for off grid, distributed, and critical operations, including:
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Real-Time Data Visualization: Monitor live operational status, levels, and key metrics across all your locations from a centralized dashboard.
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Customizable Alerts & Notifications: Receive instant warnings for threshold breaches, sudden drops, or anomalous activity before minor issues become costly failures.
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Historical Data Analysis & Predictive Analytics: Track consumption patterns, analyze usage trends, and forecast future demand to optimize maintenance and supply schedules.
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Seamless System & API Integration: Easily feed raw or aggregated telemetry into your existing enterprise software, SCADA, or ERP systems using Ellenex’s secure Open API.
Key Benefits
Ellenex Software Platform Dashboard
Individual Device Details & Data Analytics View
Parameter Configuration and GPS Location View
Device Management Interface
Historical Data & Performance Analytics
Remote Command and Downlink Control Log
Ellenex Asset Monitoring App
Custom alert and Notification Setup Interface
Data Export and Reporting Interface
Webhook and Data Forwarding Interface
Sensor Calibration and Formula Configuration
Integration Options
A core competitive advantage of the solution is its complete pre-configured, plug-and-play design. Both the cellular and LoRaWAN (with local gateway) variants arrive fully configured and ready for connection to the Ellenex platform out of the box, eliminating the complexities of local software setup, sensor programming, or manual network registration.
The end-to-end package includes the following integration characteristics:
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Zero Technical Hassles: No extra power tools, driver setup, or developer configurations are required. Deployment is completed in under 5 minutes.
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Pre-Configured Gateway Provisioning: The industrial outdoor gateway is pre-commissioned to automatically bind with the Ellenex LNS stack. Once powered via PoE or DC, it immediately discovers sensors, decrypts the payloads, and relays them directly to the centralized cloud dashboard, seamlessly routing data to the Ellenex Platform.
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Pre-Configured SIM & Connectivity: For NB-IoT deployments, the transmitter is shipped with a pre-configured 4FF Nano-SIM card and active carrier subscription, ready to transmit on regional networks immediately upon power-up.
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Unified Fleet Visualization: Once powered on, both device variants automatically check in and populate their respective live measurement streams to the user’s centralized mobile app or web dashboard.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does Frequency Domain Reflectometry (FDR) capacitance technology calculate volumetric water content across soil depths?
The vertical multi-depth probe houses high-frequency capacitance sensor nodes embedded at 10cm vertical intervals. Each node emits a high-frequency radio frequency signal into the surrounding soil to measure dielectric permittivity, which changes proportionally with soil moisture content. The internal processor converts this permittivity value into precise volumetric water content percentage (VWC %) for each specific soil layer and transmits the dataset wirelessly to the Ellenex Software Platform.
What is the recommended installation procedure to ensure proper soil-to-probe contact?
Field installation requires boring a vertical pilot hole into the crop root zone using an auger sized to match the probe diameter. Agronomists prepare a slurry using excavated soil and water, pour it into the hole, and insert the multi-depth probe smoothly until flush with the soil surface. This process eliminates air gaps along the vertical shaft, ensuring direct contact between the sensor nodes and surrounding soil for accurate dielectric moisture readings.
How do multi-depth temperature readings assist agronomists in crop management?
Alongside volumetric water content, integrated thermal sensors at each 10cm depth zone record live soil temperatures. Tracking soil thermal profiles helps agronomists predict seed germination timing in early spring, assess root activity, monitor frost penetration during winter, and correlate temperature shifts with soil water uptake rates.
How does the Ellenex Software Platform indicate when a crop reaches its refill or saturation thresholds?
The Ellenex Software Platform processes incoming multi-depth data to plot root-zone sum and average moisture graphs alongside customizable agronomic boundaries. Farm managers define specific full points (field capacity) and refill points (stress thresholds) for their soil type and crop root profile. When soil moisture approaches the refill boundary, the platform generates automated visual flags and alerts to trigger irrigation before plant stress occurs.
What data options are available for projects requiring soil salinity tracking alongside moisture and temperature?
The solution is offered in multi-sensor configurations to meet varying agronomic requirements. The MT4 variant provides 4-level volumetric water content and temperature profiling (generating 8 total data streams), while the MTS4 variant provides 4-level volumetric water content, temperature, and bulk soil salinity tracking (generating 12 total data streams) for managing soil salt accumulation.
Why is LTE Cat-M1 chosen over traditional gateways for scattered broadacre farming plots?
LTE Cat-M1 cellular connectivity utilizes existing licensed 3GPP mobile network towers, providing long-range coverage and superior signal penetration across vast agricultural landscapes. Because the transmitter connects directly to cellular towers using a pre-installed SIM card, growers can deploy standalone soil probes in remote fields or lease blocks without purchasing, installing, or powering local gateway infrastructure.
What routine servicing is required for the soil moisture monitoring unit during the crop growing season?
The system is engineered for autonomous field operation. It is powered by an internal replaceable 3.6V Lithium primary battery (LiSOCl2) and managed by ultra-low-power firmware, eliminating external solar panel cleaning or battery charging wiring. Field maintenance is limited to removing or marking probes prior to deep tillage or harvesting operations. On standard reporting schedules, the internal battery provides operational field lifespans of up to 10 years before requiring replacement.
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