A Smart-City Streetlight Controller — Engineered, Tested and Produced at Scale
We designed a LoRaWAN/BLE streetlight controller node — and the automated line that flashes, personalizes and fully tests it. Both the product and its production line are built around two off-the-shelf Elecrow components, taking the device from prototype to a sustained 2,000–2,500 units a day.
NEMA / ANSI C136.41 twist-lock
The product
Smart-city streetlight controller node
Radio core
Elecrow nRFLR1110 (nRF52840 + LR1110)
Line operator HMI
Elecrow Pi Terminal (Raspberry Pi CM4)
Throughput
2,000–2,500 nodes / day
The streetlight controller node
The node is a mains-powered smart street-light controller in a NEMA / ANSI C136.41 twist-lock form factor — it drops into the socket on top of a luminaire and takes over its control. Over LoRaWAN it handles remote dimming, scheduling, energy metering and fault reporting; BLE is used for local commissioning.
Its radio and compute core is the Elecrow nRFLR1110 module, which integrates a Nordic nRF52840 (Arm Cortex-M4 MCU with BLE/Thread) and a Semtech LR1110 (LoRa plus low-power GNSS and Wi-Fi scanning for geolocation).
- nRFLR1110 module — LoRaWAN long-range link, BLE commissioning, and built-in low-power geolocation.
- 40 A / 277 VAC relay to switch the luminaire; mains AC/DC module for self-powered operation.
- QR / data-matrix label QR / data-matrix label
- XP2 programming header — the interface the station uses to flash and test each node.
The 6-slot test & personalization station
To build the node at volume we developed an automated test & personalization station. Each station carries six NEMA twist-lock sockets; an operator drops in six nodes and the station flashes firmware, writes a unique identity (DevEUI, keys, QR-bind) and runs the full functional test — power stage, dimming, LoRaWAN and BLE.
The brain and operator HMI of the station is the Elecrow Pi Terminal — a Raspberry Pi CM4-based 7-inch industrial all-in-one (IPS 1024×600 capacitive touch, rich interfaces, optional 4G/LoRa/GPS/WiFi/BLE). It runs the test software and shows a 6-tile live dashboard, one tile per slot.
- 6 stations × 6 slots = up to 36 nodes flashed and tested at once.
- Every result written to a database for complete, queryable traceability.
- Test time per node cut from ~6 minutes to 1–2.
Built with Elecrow
Two standard Elecrow products did the heavy lifting — one inside the product, one inside the line that builds it:
In the product
Nordic nRF52840 + Semtech LR1110. The LoRa / BLE radio and MCU core of every streetlight controller node, plus built-in low-power geolocation.
In the line
Results
6 → 1–2
Minutes per node — test time cut three- to six-fold.
2,000+
Nodes per day sustained throughput, target 2,000–2,500.
100%
Shipped nodes carry a complete, queryable test & personalization history.
Where it can go next
01 · The controller
Controller-node options
- BLE-beacon mesh (nRF52840): navigation, scooters, delivery robots, geofencing.
- Low-power geolocation via the LR1110's GNSS + Wi-Fi passive scanning — no separate GPS.
- Air-quality module (PM2.5/PM10, gases, temperature, humidity).
- Acoustic event detection — transmits event type, location and time, never audio.
- OTA firmware, secure-element key storage, DALI / 0–10 V / 1–10 V dimming.
02 · The line
Station / system options
- More slots per station, or more stations, for higher throughput.
- On-station LoRaWAN gateway (Pi Terminal's optional LoRa) for true over-the-air RF test.
- Integrated label printing & automatic QR/barcode binding at the slot.
- Remote monitoring dashboard and OEE / yield analytics for line managers.
- Automated reject handling, engineer defect-triage, configurable recipes per variant.
03 · The market
Where it can be used
- Smart street lighting — city-wide dimming, scheduling, metering, fault detection.
- Smart-city sensor backhaul — any LoRaWAN endpoint riding the lighting grid.
- Environmental monitoring networks (with the air-quality option).
- Public-safety acoustic mapping (with the acoustic-event option).
- Asset & infrastructure geolocation using the LR1110's GNSS/Wi-Fi scanning.
Need something like this?
We build custom IoT products — and the lines that produce them
From a single controller node to a full test & personalization line, we take IoT devices from concept through certification to serial production. If you want a similar product — or the equipment to manufacture yours — let’s talk.