Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) are built from real-world activity rather than centrally owned assets. Contributors deploy hardware, move through cities, or collect environmental data, creating shared infrastructure that enterprises and machines can use.
Within DePIN, a growing category focuses on real-world intelligence, data that helps systems operate outside controlled environments. These projects don’t all solve the same problem. Some provide access, others provide measurements, and a few aim to deliver context that makes infrastructure usable.
Here’s how five leading DePIN projects compare.
1. Helium: Decentralized wireless coverage
Helium is one of the most established DePIN networks, enabling communities to deploy wireless infrastructure such as LoRaWAN and 5G. Contributors earn tokens by providing coverage that enterprises can use.
Its success lies in proving that decentralized contributors can build real telecom infrastructure at scale. However, Helium focuses on access, not insight. It shows where connectivity exists, but offers limited visibility into how reliable that connectivity is in real-world conditions.
Helium is best viewed as foundational infrastructure rather than a decision layer for machines.
2. Hivemapper: Crowd-sourced physical maps
Hivemapper rewards contributors for collecting street-level imagery via dashcams, keeping physical maps up to date through community participation.
The model has a clear use case and a strong data ownership narrative. But the data is largely visual and static. It describes what the world looks like, not how it behaves in real time.
For machines, fresh imagery helps navigation, but it doesn’t explain whether conditions will support reliable operation.
3. NATIX Network: Vision-based mobility intelligence
NATIX uses computer-vision data from dashcams to generate insights about traffic, parking, and road usage.
The network provides timely mobility signals that are useful for urban analytics and smart city applications. Its limitation is scope. Vision-based sensing captures only part of the environment and does not account for digital or connectivity conditions that often determine whether systems can operate reliably.
NATIX delivers useful signals, but not a full situational context.
4. WeatherXM: Decentralized environmental data
WeatherXM builds a community-powered network of weather stations that provide localized, ground-truth weather data.
The value is easy to understand, and enterprise demand is clear. Local measurements often outperform centralized forecasts, especially for microclimates. At the same time, the weather is a single input. While critical in some scenarios, it rarely determines routing or operational decisions on its own.
WeatherXM provides essential context, but as one piece of a larger picture.
5. Roam Network: The navigation layer for the physical-AI era
Roam Network takes a different approach by turning everyday movement into live intelligence about connectivity, mobility, and digital conditions. Instead of focusing on a single signal, it builds a continuously updating, user-owned navigation tool that machines and enterprises use to plan, route, and operate.
The network captures multi-modal data, including movement patterns, signal quality, and connectivity stability, across phones, vehicles, drones, and future hardware. It is designed specifically for machines that need to know not just where things are, but where they can reliably communicate and compute.
Where other DePIN networks provide inputs, Roam provides decision-grade context. It helps systems understand where operations are likely to succeed before they move, rather than reacting after something fails.
Contributors earn from movements they already make, enterprises gain visibility they cannot measure alone, and machines gain the awareness required to operate safely in real-world environments.
If Helium is the network and Hivemapper is the map, Roam is the layer machines consult before they move, compute, or communicate.
Final comparison summary
At a high level:
- Helium solves access
- Hivemapper solves visual mapping
- NATIX solves traffic sensing
- WeatherXM solves environmental conditions
- Roam connects these signals into usable intelligence
Why context beats raw infrastructure
As machines move into the real world, raw infrastructure is no longer enough. Coverage without reliability, maps without digital conditions, and data without context all break down at scale.
The DePIN networks with the strongest long-term value will be those that help machines understand where things will work, not just where they exist. By focusing on real-world context rather than single inputs, Roam Network positions itself as an infrastructure that machines will increasingly depend on.
Disclaimer: This is a paid post and should not be treated as news/advice.
Source: https://ambcrypto.com/5-depin-projects-turning-real-world-activity-into-infrastructure/
