LoRa (Raw) & MQTT vs. LoRaWAN & private LoRaWAN server

[Thosch42]

Hi all!
In order to find the best solution for my current project, I have to make a decision. Simplified, I have a couple of sensor nodes, and they have to send there values via LoRa to an gateway. The gateway forwards the values via internet connection to any kind of server. There are (at least) two possible solutions:

1. On the server side, just setting up an MQTT Broker, sending the values from the nodes via LoRa raw, and let the appropriate gateway forward the values to the broker.

2. On the server side, set up a private LoRa Server, (like this one https://github.com/brocaar/loraserver), sending the values from the nodes via LoRaWAN to the gateway and forwarding them to the LoRa Server.

As far as I thought, if I go the first way, the server side is pretty easy, but there's a lot to do on the nodes and on the gateway. I need to handle tx trials and all around the "routing" of the sensor values.

Implementing the second solution, the server side looks a bit more complex, but the gateway seems to be straightforward, and also the efford on the nodes seems not that much.

I would be glad to hear some opinions from you, about the pros & cons, or some different solutions for this, how I think, very common task.

Cheers,
Thomas

[Paul Thornton]

Hi Thomas,

Is this something that has to be completely self hosted?

If not have you considered the things network? a simple solution would be to let TTN handle the gateway backend (Albeit you could still host your own gateway).

And use there webhook's system or similar to route the data where ever you require it over the net.

[bmarkus]

@thosch42 Create an account at LORIOT public cloud infrastructure choosing the closest server. It is free for unlimeted time, no creadit card needed. Support nearly all gateway models and has plenty of output interfaces like HTTP PUSH, WebSocket TLS Socket, MQTT, CoAP, AZURE, AWS IBM Cloud, Ceyenne and many others and has built in monitoring, logging tools to help development. Also it support Class-C devices and multicast. Depending on your location, you may enjoy benefits of server-wise roaming.

It is the most efficient way to start and free for 1xGW and 10xDEVICE.

Take a look on https://loriot.io/login.html

Regards,

Béla

[Thosch42]

@paul-thornton said in LoRa (Raw) & MQTT vs. LoRaWAN & private LoRaWAN server:

Is this something that has to be completely self hosted?

From the current state of things, yes, it has to. I need a solution that can scale up. We think about several hundrets of nodes with several gateways per application. Everything has to be self powered. And also for now, it's not clear if the gateways will have a permanent connection to the higher-level network, or will initially store all the information and load them up in fixed intervals.
My first attempt was, to use TTN. But there are opinions that speak against it. Think of areas in the world where the Internet is not as free as it should be.

Cheers,
Thomas