don’t buy the buy the TTIG gateway, it’s wasted money!
Why not?
No flexibility, bound to TTN
Bricks easily, no recovery possible
Bad performance
Broken promises to publish hardware and software to the public domain
When the TTIG was introduced, there was a promise that the hardware and firmware will be released open source. The years are passing by and not even the firmware got released.
In the mean while my gateway got bricked - it lights up red, flickering green periodically. According to the manual this could mean “Scanning WiFi networks, setting up Config AP” - but there is no AP, it does not connect to my WiFi. A Factory reset did not change anything.
The ESP8266 can be easily flashed - but no firmware image got released, nor any instructions about the location of the required pins to connect to.
Also the ESP8266 is quite low-end for this application.
Before it stopped working, it was frequently blinking green - apparently it could not communicate with the back-end and listening to the ratio at the same time due to resource constraints.
What I use instead now and can recommend to you:
IMST iC880A-SPI (with Raspberry Pi - also available as complete set “Lite Gateway”)
Dragino LPS8
There you have more flexibility and possibilities to recover in case of a problem.
It’s a pity your experiences with a TTIG are that bad.
I have several of them happily forwarding data all the time. Apart from suboptimal range because its an indoor gateway with a small antenna I experience no performance issues. The unit has plenty of CPU cycles to listen to the radio and connect to WLAN, however if there is no LoRaWAN traffic for a certain amount of time the connection to the backend will be released to decrease resource usage. Nothing unusual and no cause for concern.
I think TTIGs are very nice well performing gateways if used with TTN. And affordable as well.
You have one TTIG that has caused you problems and as this is your first post, you have clearly never sought any assistance from any of us here, many of us have several TTIGs.
It gets updated over the air. And the migration to v3 required a firmware update. So very incorrect.
Hopefully any other post you make will be before you get frustrated with a device - there is plenty of help to be had here if you are nice about it.
I’d be interested to know how exactly you are experiencing this ‘bricked’ state.
When you say ‘there is no AP’, did you mean this: “I pushed the setup button for at least 10 seconds while powered up, the LED rapidly flashes red/green and the to slow red (i.e. the device is in CONFIG mode). When looking at the visible APs with my laptop, I don’t see any ssid starting with ‘MiniHub’.”
Is that what you mean to say?
Also, when you say ‘it does not connect to my WiFi’, di you mean to say: “I connect my device to a power source which is capable of supplying 1A@5V. The LED rapidly flashes red/green and then slow green (i.e. the device is in CONNECTING state). However, the LED never goes to solid green and my DHCP server never shows a device with a hostname starting with ‘Minihub’. I know for sure that I configured the AP credentials correctly in to the TTIG”
If my understanding is not correct and you may have reached your conclusions via a different path, could please explain in more detail what exactly you did?
Also, please make sure you use a suitable power source. Sometimes, the USB-C port might be tempting to plug into a 500mA@5V power source, however, this will generally not suffice to get the WiFi front end powered.
Regarding the TTIG firmware not being open source - this is unfortunately true. However, the firmware is based on LoRa Basics Station, which is an open source project. Which aspect of the firmware exactly are you interested in?
The error mode you are observing is very unlikely to be rooted in a firmware issue.
Did your device work at some point? For how long? What happened shortly before it stopped working?
many thanks for your feedback!
Now I experienced a strong argument for this gateway: A very nice, constructive and supportive community!
In the first place I was very enthusiastic about this gateway, since it was announced open hardware and source. Then I was a bit disappointed because I could not find schematics nor the firmware. When it broke I indeed was a bit frustrated.
@kersing, it was quite okay until it broke. I did not perform any stress test, but I got the impression that there are some frequent (RF) down-times according to the LED patterns.
@descartes, that’s correct, but OTA does not work for me anymore. I was looking for a firmware image, which can be flashed to the device.
@bei, my gateway worked fine for around a year. Then I moved it to another access point, it still worked. Shortly after that it stopped working without any particular reason (no manually triggered firmware update, power outage or other manual interaction). For recovery I tried a power-on reset, a factory reset, switch it to GW mode, but nothing worked out.
Now the gateway does not connect to the WiFi anymore (no assigned IP in the DHCP list)
It keeps the same blinking pattern, independent of pressing the setup/reset buttons (short, 5 s, 10 s)
No AP visible (with our without pressing the setup button for 10 s)
As power source I use the internal power supply (Euro plug). To be ensure that the supply is not faulty, I just connected it to USB-C instead (5 V/2 A) - it shows the same behaviour.
I am assuming that the flash got corrupted for whatever reason. That’s the reason why I was looking out for a (binary) firmware image and a schematic (Vcc, Gnd, TxD, RxD and GPIO0 test pads) to be able to re-flash the device.
Whilst I’m not aware of a schematic, there are instructions on getting a serial port going - but that will invalidate your warranty if there is still one. In the UK we could get this replaced under the “not fit for purpose” clause of Sale of Goods, you may have something similar in your country.
Or, if you ask the vendor nice & politely, they may even swap it for you out of good will.
So I’d try that first and if that’s not a success, then put a serial connection on it to see what it is doing when it starts up.
Poor connection and a subsequent barfed firmware update/corrupt connection issue?
Does the new AP have a flakey WiFi/DHCP set up I wonder (one of my BBand routers/AP at home has a flakey/intermittent WiFi and I had to reprogramme a couple of devices to shift to more reliable option on other AP’s
Unfortunately this is not covered by warranty anymore…
I’ll give it a try with the serial connection. But before I need to organise a such a tiny Torx, because I really hate destructive disassembling…
Agree, before the re-connect it was down for some months. Likely it tried to install an update after re-connect.
I don’t use the WiFi of my BBand modem, I prefer to use my own APs (that’s more convenient of the modem gets replaced). That’s also not perfect, but I have quite some devices connecting to them without any problems.
And even if the connection drops during an update, it should not harm the device (otherwise it would be really poorly designed).
I’ll post an update once I disassembled it and sniffed the debug messages on the serial interface.
Are you own AP’s on cellular or home spun WRT / RPi type things?
Whilst we would all be in full agreement about a partial update not borking a device, I haven’t seen this as an issue. Sometimes people end up with a lemon but it’s not fair to judge a whole product on your own experience - it sounds like you’ve just been really unlucky or there has been a really subtle mis-step somewhere down the line that’s arrived at this situation.
Let’s hope the serial debug reveals some useful information - please ensure you use the </> on the toolbar for reader friendly formatting!
Interesting. From where do you have that information?
I don’t remember any such statements from The Things Conference where/when the TTIG was announced.
I then also spoke the author of the TTIG firmware. He said the TTIG is running LoRa Basics Station which is open source but the implementation of the hardware abstraction layer for the ESP8266 is proprietary closed source. He was not sure whether that would ever be made open source.
This contradicts your above statement about the TTIG firmware.
Thank you for your hints! My setup is nothing special (no OpenWrt/DD-WRT for my home network, RPis unrelated for WiFi access) - just an ADSL modem with a wired connection to my APs.
Since the gateway blinks, without reacting on pressing the buttons and opening an AP, I cannot test it with another AP like my mobile hotspot, since it cannot be re-configured.
Many thanks for your feedback! I might have mixed up with The Things Kickstarter Gateway. Unfortunately I cannot edit the first post anymore, because I would now like to re-word the whole post to “advantages and disadvantages of buying the TTIG gateway”, because the great community around is really a big plus.
In general I like open source projects - because it can improve the quality and reduces the risk that the item ends up as a paper weight in case of the owner abandons the product.
But there are bigger challenges - although LoRa is quite open, the proprietary modulation technique is patented. And who likes single-sourcing, being dependent on Semtech? Sorry, a bit off-topic.
Has to start somewhere - people need to innovate and someone always gets there 1st! Actually it was Cycleo to begin with (French start up from near Grenoble). Early work done with Semtech and others. Semtech had the vision and saw the value/potential so then bought the company for ~$25M, closing in March '12. They took the ball and ran with it and continue to innovate. Recognising you cant build a whole eco-system alone they started to partner with others and then offered licences to others. It takes time for those licences to close, then new designs to start and finally arrive as alternate silicon. Some took Semtech Si and went down the path of SIP’s and/or modules - easier/faster TTM and lower risk - e.g. Microchip. Others have taken alternate routes and if you want to go from zero to SoC it can be 2, 3 even 4 years to 1st production Si - STM have their chip product in the market now (STM32WLEx - Wireless MCUs with LoRa support - STMicroelectronics ) - with the equivalent of a 2nd gen SX126x class radio as the LoRa front end. I would not be suprised to see others in the future, - heck if you have deep pockets I’m sure you could go buy a licence yourself! and as with the SX126x products and the LR1110 derivatives for GNSS based apps the original parent still innovates and delivers new offerings - for both node and GW use (SX1301 → 1308 derivative → 1302 2nd Gen → 1303 derivative, etc.), plus we have Fast LoRa (FLora) and 2.4Ghz iterations…
As you say off topic for the thread but as with your starting position wrt TTIG, you need to look at the bigger picture and not just your 1st impression Just sayin’
I just saw this thread and I’m not sure of some of the following
No flexibility, bound to TTN
This is not true. You can use the TTIG with any LNS provider. It just needs to be initially claimed in The Things Stack Cloud or The Things Stack Community Edition. I see that documentation is missing for this and I’ll add this soon.
Bricks easily, no recovery possible
Please quantify this. How many units have you had and how many of those are bricked? And what do you mean by “easily”? If it’s bricked then it’s most likely a hardware fault and the vendor would be happy to replace it. If you can comment on who the vendor is, I’ll get in touch with them to get you a replacement unit. We’d then like to receive your bricked unit and run some tests.
Bad performance
Once again, please quantify what this is. Range/Packet loss/Connectivity? And what is your reference gateway to which you are comparing the performance. What devices and mode of operation are you using?
Broken promises to publish hardware and software to the public domain
Such a promise was never made. If you have a specific documentation link or webinar where someone might have mistakenly said this, please link that here and we’ll add a note there.
and as with the SX126x products and the LR1110 derivatives for GNSS based apps the original parent still innovates and delivers new offerings - for both node and GW use (SX1301 → 1308 derivative → 1302 2nd Gen → 1303 derivative, etc.), plus we have Fast LoRa (FLora) and 2.4Ghz iterations…
Just sayin’ 
