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FORUM

Absolute beginner day one questions ( very long )

LoRa Basics™
#1

let me start by telling you how I got here.

I set out to build an Arduino doorbell that makes any sound but “ding-dong”. that was easy. then it occurred to me, put a camera on the door to see who rang the bell when I was gone. that would be useless without a time tag, so I added a GPS and RTC. then I determined that I need a driveway sensor, because when you have a 400 foot driveway, there is no need to be surprised by a doorbell.

project creep set in, and it has become the Large Property Perimeter Monitor: an intrusion or incursion detector for ranches, gravel pits, et cetera.

a problem is, every sensor needs a transmitter and receiver, every transmitter and receiver needs a controller - the expense and complexity are frightful.

and then I discovered LoRa and LoraWAN, which appear to be the solution I need, but there are no truly helpful beginners guides. everything I learn just raises more questions.

like this: every beginners guide wants to have me on the air to the IoT in an hour. never a word about keeping things local and private. What I probably need is just a single channel gateway, with a dozen or so GPIO pins to act as inputs to the Arduino. If I get a Heltec M00 or M01, can I just use that as a component in my system, or must I connect to the IoT? can I program a HeltecM01 connected to an RPi Pico or a RAK 7244 to be my application server ( asking about feasibility, not my ability )

applications servers: must I be dependent on a remote applications server to translate sensor output to actuator input, or can I keep it in house?

gateway: looking at a RAK7244. first question: if you built a Pi hat or Arduino shield with a GPS, would you not include an RTC, or provisions to add one? it’s like, you have everything you need to build an NTP server except one $1.66 part, and you don’t include it?

it appears that if I stick up a gateway server, everybody in range can connect their nodes to it and get on the IoT for very little outlay. are all IoT gateways open, is there a provision for reserving bandwidth for the guy paying the bills?

can four adjoining ranches put a gateway up on a pole and make a “just us” network?

can I put a gateway server on the far corner of the property and connect to the IoT via wifi to the house, and then the internet?

I will have more questions later, I’m sure

#2

Hi,

I you want to create a LoRaWAN network I suggest you to have a look at the LoRaWAN academy, especially the Module 2 chapter LoRaWAN Networks. You will learn about private networks, if you do not want to rely on Internet connection nor share the network.
That said, it might also prevent your use case to share a gateway between several neighbors as the application messages from the Network Server/Application Server will probably required Internet to get to each neighbor.

If you want to do LoRa point to point you might be able to find tutorial by looking at RadioHead or Arduino-LoRa libraries tutorial

Regarding you question on RAK gateway, I can not answer it, please ask RAK Wireless representative.

Olivier

#4

I couple other things you might want to look at :slight_smile:

https://lora-developers.semtech.com/library/tech-papers-and-guides/building-a-lora-based-device-end-to-end-with-arduino/

Also, the “Build an End-to-End Solution Using the LoRaWAN® Protocol and LoRa Edge™ LR1110” in the HOL area here:

https://lora-developers.semtech.com/learning-center/hands-on-labs/

And you can always play around with the hosted Semtech Network Server (it’s ChirpStack) for free in the dev portal here:

https://lora-developers.semtech.com/resources/network-server/

If you like ChirpStack, you can run that on-prem…it has it’s own built-in app server, so you don’t HAVE to go to the inet. You can go to ChirpStack for more info on that, and also take a look at our HOL for the Network Server in the HOL section.

Hope that these resources get you started!