LoRaWAN network

[gouao]

@jmarcelino Sure, the devices communicating between themselves case was for some tests.
How this server scenario actually works ? The planning will consist to send data to this server.

So the LoRa mode is certainly working on low frequency ? Do you know the range of this mode please ?
Furthermore, what could be the etablishment of my own encryption ? Some code to add in the boot.py ?

Do you have any code samples wich could help me on this, and for the LoRaWAN network ?

Thanks

[jmarcelino]

@gouao
I suggest reading a few things on LoRaWAN such as https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/wiki/LoRaWAN/Home and also this crash-course video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3dGLqZrjIQ

It's difficult to say a range with anything radio, it depends on your environment, but my best with LoRa was 5 Kilometres using SF12, no line of sight and the receiver located at an altitude of 8 meters

For encryption of LoRa data you could use for example AES, see https://docs.pycom.io/pycom_esp32/library/ucrypto.AES.html
then just make sure both LoPys have the same key.

I don't have any LoRa samples sorry, but the nano gateway example I linked below and the LoRa-MAC (Raw LoRa) in the Pycom tutorial should explain it.

[gouao]

@jmarcelino It's very kind of you, I will dig on this side !

May I return to you if I still have questions ?

Thanks for all.

[bmarkus]

@jmarcelino said in LoRaWAN network:

It's difficult to say a range with anything radio, it depends on your environment, but my best with LoRa was 5 Kilometres using SF12, no line of sight and the receiver located at an altitude of 8 meters

With line of sight we have stable link in 50-60 km where S/N is around 0dB which means there is plenty of spare link budget down to -18dB. Conditions:

• 868 MHz
• Kerlink professional gateways
• SF12
• Simple omni-directional antenna

Record is cca. 150 km distance. In a city like Budapest from car with antenna on the roof 20-25km usually works with Kerlink gateways.

On 434 MHz with P2P using SX127x chips, not SX130x we have seen 60km link, on a bicycle tracking it gives 10-12km reliable tracking with stable station just in a house, no hilltop, towers, etc.

[gouao]

@bmarkus said in LoRaWAN network:

@jmarcelino said in LoRaWAN network:

It's difficult to say a range with anything radio, it depends on your environment, but my best with LoRa was 5 Kilometres using SF12, no line of sight and the receiver located at an altitude of 8 meters

With line of sight we have stable link in 50-60 km where S/N is around 0dB which means there is plenty of spare link budget down to -18dB. Conditions:

• 868 MHz
• Kerlink professional gateways
• SF12
• Simple omni-directional antenna

Record is cca. 150 km distance. In a city like Budapest from car with antenna on the roof 20-25km usually works with Kerlink gateways.

On 434 MHz with P2P using SX127x chips, not SX130x we have seen 60km link, on a bicycle tracking it gives 10-12km reliable tracking with stable station just in a house, no hilltop, towers, etc.

Wow, thanks ! Can you estimate the price of such a project ?

[jmarcelino]

@gouao
It's not really a question of price, but 99% about antenna positioning - especially what's around the antennas - on both nodes and gateways.

You can easily spend $1000+ on a gateway and not get much more than 1Km.

Line of sight and antenna height are particularly important. The video I linked explains a lot about that.

[bmarkus]

@jmarcelino said in LoRaWAN network:

@gouao
It's not really a question of price, but 99% about antenna positioning - especially what's around the antennas - on both nodes and gateways.

You can easily spend $1000+ on a gateway and not get much more than 1Km.

Line of sight and antenna height are particularly important. The video I linked explains a lot about that.

People tend to forget LoRa is RADIO technology which need ANTENNA and proper POSITIONING, not only software. A proper antenna can make miracles. However we see better performance using a Kerlink GW over RPi even they have the same chipset. Frontend filters can improve performance on receiving side. By experience the latest Kerlink station outperforms current generation according to our tests. So for higher price you get better performance. But true, you can reach poor performance for high price also with improper installation, noisy environment, etc.

[gouao]

@jmarcelino said in LoRaWAN network:

@gouao
It's not really a question of price, but 99% about antenna positioning - especially what's around the antennas - on both nodes and gateways.

You can easily spend $1000+ on a gateway and not get much more than 1Km.

Line of sight and antenna height are particularly important. The video I linked explains a lot about that.

True, the vid explains a lot about it, and underlines points like antenna height, reflection & diffraction phenomenon.

Any ideas how could I configure a server for a LoRaWAN network, wich will probably work with a TTN gateway please ?

[jmarcelino]

@gouao

If you mean running a server for your own private LoRaWAN network (outside of Things Network) you can try https://github.com/brocaar/loraserver

The other alternative - and the way I'm using - is to run you own copy of Things Network, it's fully open source and they even provide a setup guide at https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/article/setting-up-a-private-routing-environment - but you should really understand how their system works first.

[bmarkus]

@jmarcelino said in LoRaWAN network:

@gouao

If you mean running a server for your own private LoRaWAN network (outside of Things Network) you can try https://github.com/brocaar/loraserver

The other alternative - and the way I'm using - is to run you own copy of Things Network, it's fully open source and they even provide a setup guide at https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/article/setting-up-a-private-routing-environment - but you should really understand how their system works first.

You can use a Loriot server also, which is free for 1 GW and up to 10 devices, see https://loriot.io/

[gouao]

Thanks both of you !

[Stroggo]

@jmarcelino It's possible to send peer-to-peer with two LoPy's. Pycom have supplied a tutorial on that in the documentation. The range I get between two LoPy's is about 400-500 meters in urban area, which is not particullary good though