Forget Santa’s sleigh. For Finland’s reindeer herders, the challenge is far from festive. Every year, thousands of animals go missing – most permanently – costing herders income and government compensation. In winter, the clock ticks fast: fresh snowfall can erase tracks within hours, leaving herders to gamble on blind searches across vast, mountainous terrain.
This is not just a logistical headache; it’s an existential threat to a centuries-old livelihood. Traditional GSM-based collars have offered little relief – bulky, battery-hungry, and capable of sending only one location update per day. By the time herders mobilized, the trail was cold.
Dashing through the snow… the high-stakes reality of reindeer herding
To solve this challenge, Finnish map-technology company Mapitare deploys Digital Matter’s ultra-rugged LoRaWAN Yabby3 trackers. These trackers are designed precisely for environments where connectivity fails and temperatures test electronics to breaking point. “This is not a forgiving environment for electronics,” says Loic Barancourt, CEO of Digital Matter.
He argues that LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) is a strong fit for reindeer tracking as it combines long-range coverage with low power consumption and low operating costs, critical factors when monitoring animals across vast, sparsely populated areas.
In Finland, network operators mounted LoRaWAN gateways on existing 300-meter broadcast masts, providing wide-area coverage across approximately 120,000 km² of reindeer husbandry land. This approach avoids dense infrastructure build-outs and eliminates per-device cellular subscriptions, enabling herd-scale deployments that would be economically prohibitive via satellite or cellular GPS.
From dots on a map to actionable intelligence
Connectivity is only half the efficiency story. The other half is turning telemetry into decisions that compress time-to-action and cut wasted effort. Digital Matter’s devices feed data directly into Mapitare’s high-resolution mapping platform, which overlays GNSS positions with terrain intelligence, elevation profiles, and known hazards.
“They can see precise GNSS positions in relation to valleys, elevation changes, and known hazards,” Barancourt notes.
“This information is essential when animals roam freely across large, mountainous areas.” This transforms recovery missions. Instead of triangulating from sparse points and hoping for the best, herders can plan routes that avoid avalanche-prone slopes and impassable ridges, reach stationary animals more quickly, and reduce exposure to dangerous terrain.
Early-warning alerts: Time is everything
The Yabby3’s onboard accelerometer adds another layer of efficiency: inactivity alerts. If a reindeer stops moving for a configurable period, the device flags potential trouble: injury, entanglement, snow immobilization or predator attack.
“These alerts are critical early-warning signals,” says Barancourt. “Because tracks can disappear within hours during snowfall, early notification dramatically improves the chances of reaching the animal in time.”
For herders, this means fewer wasted patrols and faster, more targeted interventions – turning reactive searches into proactive rescues.
Efficiency beyond the field: Documentation and ROI
In an industry where margins hinge on recovery rates and compensation eligibility, data is currency. Frequent updates and alert logs create a defensible record for government claims, while post-season analysis helps identify recurring hazards and optimize future routes.
The economics are compelling. Multi-year battery life and low-power connectivity minimize maintenance costs, while shared LoRaWAN infrastructure keeps operating expenses competitive with cellular and far below satellite. “Even modest improvements in recovery rates can offset device costs over time,” says Barancourt.
Scaling the model: From Finland to global pastures
The success of this deployment is already shaping expansion plans. Sweden and Norway are natural next steps, but Barancourt believes the model is highly repeatable for other free-range livestock systems – cattle on rangelands, sheep in mountainous regions, or mixed herds in remote pastures.
“The same principles apply,” he notes. Combine rugged, low-power trackers with wide-area connectivity and terrain-aware mapping, and you unlock efficiency in places where traditional solutions fail, he argues.
IoT as an efficiency engine
For Finnish herders, LoRaWAN isn’t just a connectivity solution. By shrinking search windows, reducing risk, and turning telemetry into actionable guidance, Mapitare and Digital Matter are proving that IoT can preserve a way of life while making it more resilient, sustainable, and efficient.
In the Arctic, where every hour matters, that’s the difference between being snowblind and being strategically informed.
