How does this differ from IP over ham radio? It seems like in general, it would just be lower distance and greater reliance on nodes near you, with the trade off being smaller equipment.
Its biggest + in my book is that you don’t have to be a ham to make it work. There are better systems if you want more reliable communications. But its a fun side hobby and, in the event of a power outage, a decent little communicator. Although from personal experience, most of the devices piggy back of your existing cell phones and bluetooth. So ironically as long as the cell towers aren’t blown to hell, your still fine either way.
What is the typical power requirement on these devices? Can it be used to set up IoT sensor nodes in the wild where they work off solar, or do they need periodic tuning/care?
Very low and yes. They work great for IoT, as long as it’s not mission critical stuff as messages can get dropped or arrive out of order sometimes. But for something like monitoring a remote sensor station that’s within the Lora range, without needing a cellular plan, yes.
What is the range of a device like this? Is there any chance of using a mesh system like that if you’re not in a city? I’m about 30 miles away from a few towns, so there’s little chance for repeaters to be nearby.
Theoretically you can get 50 ish miles or more with line of sight. In practice, you can get around 10 ish with repeaters. With around 30 devices, our city has effective coverage.
You also have options to use MQTT if you want to make sure a message gets through. But that requires an internet connection.
What about without line of sight? If I get one of these is it going to work while it’s sitting on my desk, or am I going to have to mount some antennas on the roof to actually make it usable? The maps only show like three other people in my city with one, so I’m not sure how useful this will actually be for me.
Honestly, its a fun side project, but without enough nodes its more of a hobby. If you want to make it usable, its probably better to use internet or higher power devices (like ham). Or buy a metric ton of these and throw them up high.
As long as you have a node in sight, it should be good for at least some communication. My little window node gets 20+ nodes.
You can, there are websites that show some of the devices. But from what I’ve found, it’s only showing around 1/4 of the real devices in the area. Or at least where I am at.
I’m on the phone so I’m not sure off the top of my head, but I think someone already linked a couple above.
I got mine recently in a dxent aized city and while there are plenty of nodes popping up on the map, the local channel is pretty quiet. Is that normal?
Yeah, we had to make a weather app on longfast to fill the void. Tech people tend to not talk all that much. We are the strange ones ;)
Most of the weather app was made from a reddit post back a year or so ago. I have no idea where though. App is a python script here if your interested.
The phone app gives the location of nodes want you to know. And most don’t care. For example, in my city there is currently 24 online nodes my window node has interacted with. And 174 in total nodes it’s contacted today.
I maintain three of these devices, if anyone has any questions.
How does this differ from IP over ham radio? It seems like in general, it would just be lower distance and greater reliance on nodes near you, with the trade off being smaller equipment.
https://themodernham.com/ip-over-ham-radio-via-new-packet-radio/
Its biggest + in my book is that you don’t have to be a ham to make it work. There are better systems if you want more reliable communications. But its a fun side hobby and, in the event of a power outage, a decent little communicator. Although from personal experience, most of the devices piggy back of your existing cell phones and bluetooth. So ironically as long as the cell towers aren’t blown to hell, your still fine either way.
What is the typical power requirement on these devices? Can it be used to set up IoT sensor nodes in the wild where they work off solar, or do they need periodic tuning/care?
I’m running about 1w per device ATM.
So yeah it sips energy. There’s a lot of nodes in the mountains that are solar powered. They work.
Very low and yes. They work great for IoT, as long as it’s not mission critical stuff as messages can get dropped or arrive out of order sometimes. But for something like monitoring a remote sensor station that’s within the Lora range, without needing a cellular plan, yes.
What is the range of a device like this? Is there any chance of using a mesh system like that if you’re not in a city? I’m about 30 miles away from a few towns, so there’s little chance for repeaters to be nearby.
Theoretically you can get 50 ish miles or more with line of sight. In practice, you can get around 10 ish with repeaters. With around 30 devices, our city has effective coverage.
You also have options to use MQTT if you want to make sure a message gets through. But that requires an internet connection.
What about without line of sight? If I get one of these is it going to work while it’s sitting on my desk, or am I going to have to mount some antennas on the roof to actually make it usable? The maps only show like three other people in my city with one, so I’m not sure how useful this will actually be for me.
Honestly, its a fun side project, but without enough nodes its more of a hobby. If you want to make it usable, its probably better to use internet or higher power devices (like ham). Or buy a metric ton of these and throw them up high.
As long as you have a node in sight, it should be good for at least some communication. My little window node gets 20+ nodes.
Additionally is there a way to search what’s already out there without a device?
You can, there are websites that show some of the devices. But from what I’ve found, it’s only showing around 1/4 of the real devices in the area. Or at least where I am at.
I’m on the phone so I’m not sure off the top of my head, but I think someone already linked a couple above.
Thanks. I eventually saw that comment and I am just a bit out of range of one listed.
I got mine recently in a dxent aized city and while there are plenty of nodes popping up on the map, the local channel is pretty quiet. Is that normal?
Yeah, we had to make a weather app on longfast to fill the void. Tech people tend to not talk all that much. We are the strange ones ;)
Most of the weather app was made from a reddit post back a year or so ago. I have no idea where though. App is a python script here if your interested.
The maps do not show any devices in the country where I live, but due to the low cost and practical use, I’d love to set some up.
If i am usually within 6km of my home, in a city. I wonder if 1 node will be enough coverage.
Also, how can you tell that there are more nodes than reported on those sites?
The phone app gives the location of nodes want you to know. And most don’t care. For example, in my city there is currently 24 online nodes my window node has interacted with. And 174 in total nodes it’s contacted today.
It can be spotty during certain times of the day.