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.
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.
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.
I maintain three of these devices, if anyone has any questions.
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.
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/
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.