Creating a Modular and Decentralized Smart Mailbox System Using LoRaWan Networks

Abstract

As more “Big-Tech” companies are developing IoT devices for the consumer, many users and professionals alike, have qualms about the direction that IoT devices are taking. Issues such as how IoT devices can protect user’s privacy while optimizing for efficiency and modularity have arose. This paper addresses these worries by developing a Smart Mailbox system to address the shortcoming of current IoT technologies. This paper also shows that numerous functionalities can be easily added to existing devices to ease our daily lives. For mailboxes, these enhancements could be to identify whether the mailbox is open or closed, whether a small package or a letter was delivered in the mail, whether the mail inside the box is subjected to high heat, etc. Our proposed design uses alternative networks, such as LoRaWan, which provides benefits and assurances to the end-user such as decentralization and security. While we specifically focused on creating a Smart Mailbox for the average consumer, the technologies used in this paper can be very quickly utilized for other IoT products and specialized for enterprises’ needs. When producing our design, we experimented with different types of distance-detecting sensors to determine how to produce the most accurate results that would be resistant to external factors such as temperature. Our results indicated that for the case of a Smart Mailbox, a combination of a temperature sensor and an ultrasonic sensor created the most consistent results. Finally, we found that the most optimal placement for the sensor would be on the mailbox’s door itself.