Skalica Smart Parking: LoRaWAN Sensors and Permit Cards

Deployment Snapshot

Field	Value
Client	Slovanet, a. s.
HQ	Bratislava, Slovakia
Industry	Alternative telecommunications / LoRaWAN network operator
Products deployed	IoT Parking Sensor Standard (LoRaWAN), IoT Permit Card (BLE), IoT Hub (5-year subscription)
Connectivity	LoRaWAN, BLE
Deployment type	Municipal production deployment with on-site installation
Invoice date	September 2023
Deployment site	Skalica, Slovakia
Warranty	3 years (sensors)

The Client

Slovanet, a. s. is one of Slovakia's largest alternative telecommunications operators, founded in 2000 and headquartered in Bratislava. The company provides VoIP, broadband, web hosting, and data connectivity to households and businesses across Slovakia, with 200-500 employees. Since 2016, Slovanet has operated a nationwide LoRaWAN network covering 10+ Slovak cities — positioning the telecom as a critical infrastructure provider for IoT applications including smart metering, environmental monitoring, and smart parking.

Slovanet's LoRaWAN network is the backbone that makes municipal IoT deployments across Slovakia commercially viable. Rather than each municipality building its own gateway infrastructure, towns like Skalica can leverage Slovanet's existing network to connect LoRaWAN parking sensor devices immediately upon installation.

The Challenge: Bringing Smart Parking and Permit Enforcement to a Slovak Town

Skalica, a historic town of approximately 15,000 people in western Slovakia near the Czech border, faces the parking congestion typical of small European towns: a compact historic centre with limited parking, high demand from commuters and visitors, and permit zones that are difficult to enforce manually. Municipal enforcement officers checking physical permits on windshields is time-consuming, inconsistent, and generates resident complaints about both under-enforcement and perceived unfairness.

The municipality needed both occupancy detection (which spaces are available) and vehicle identification (which vehicles are authorised to park in permit zones) — two complementary functions that require different sensor technologies working together, effectively a lightweight parking enforcement software layer built on top of in-ground parking sensors.

The Solution: Full-Stack Smart Parking with Sensors, Permit Cards, and Long-Term Backend

Slovanet's deployment in Skalica combines three Fleximodo components into a complete parking management system.

The deployment included:

• IoT Parking Sensor Standard (LoRaWAN, in-ground) — Dual-sensing in-ground parking sensors with extended 3-year warranty, installed in Skalica's parking zones and connected through Slovanet's own LoRaWAN network
• IoT Permit Card (BLE) — Wireless vehicle identification cards placed in authorised vehicles, detected by in-ground sensors via Bluetooth Low Energy to automate permit-zone verification
• IoT Hub — 5-year subscription — Long-term backend commitment prepaid for the full project duration, giving Slovanet and the municipality continuous access to Fleximodo's CityPortal dashboard for occupancy and enforcement data
• On-site installation in Skalica — 8 sensors installed as the initial deployment phase

The 5-year IoT Hub commitment is the most revealing element of this order. While most Fleximodo deployments use either annual OPEX (renewed yearly) or OPEX-free (lifetime), Slovanet negotiated a fixed 5-year term — aligning the backend subscription with what is likely a 5-year municipal contract between Slovanet and the town of Skalica. This structure protects Slovanet's margin: the telecom knows its exact backend cost for the contract duration and can set its municipal pricing accordingly.

The Permit Card integration elevates this beyond simple parking occupancy detection. When a vehicle parks in a permit zone, the in-ground sensor detects the vehicle's presence while the Permit Card identifies whether that specific vehicle is authorised. Together, they automate what previously required a human enforcement officer — creating a digital enforcement layer that operates continuously and fairly, viewable in real time through CityPortal.

Including on-site installation for 8 sensors (rather than shipping hardware for the client to install) suggests this initial phase is a municipal demonstration: a visible, working zone that the town council can evaluate before approving a wider rollout across Skalica's parking infrastructure.

Fleximodo IoT Parking Sensor Standard In-ground 2.0: Technical Profile

Specification	Detail
Detection method	3-axis magnetic field + nanoradar (dual-sensing)
Detection accuracy	99.96%
Dimensions	115 mm diameter, height 64 mm
Weight	390 g
Battery	3.6 V, 13-19 Ah (6-year operational lifetime)
Connectivity	LoRaWAN Class A/B/C
Ingress protection	IP68
Impact resistance	IK10
Weight endurance	Up to 8 tonnes
Operating temperature	-40 to +85 °C

The -40 to +85 °C operating range is not just a magnetometer parking sensor spec on paper — western Slovakia's continental climate swings from freezing winters to hot summers, and the same in-ground sensor has to keep reading vehicles accurately through both. Fleximodo's magnetometer-based radar parking sensor achieves this with automatic temperature compensation, which continuously recalibrates the magnetic-field baseline against measured temperature so seasonal drift is not mistaken for a car arriving or leaving. That is a large part of how the sensor sustains 99.96% detection accuracy year-round in Skalica's parking zones.

Fleximodo IoT Permit Card 2.1: Technical Profile

Specification	Detail
Dimensions	32.5 × 62.5 × 20 mm
Weight	20 g
Battery	Li-SOCl2, 1200 mAh, 3.6 V (9.5-year lifetime)
Communication	BLE + UWB (dual-radio)
Transmission range	30 metres
Ingress protection	IP67
Operating temperature	-40 to +75 °C
Security	Anti-cloning protection
Customisation	Text, logo, branding

Fleximodo smart parking technology is deployed in 30+ countries. View all products | Stadt Ulm — German municipality with Fleximodo sensors and Permit Cards | PosAm — Slovak smart parking with Fleximodo NB-IoT