Can I use Lopy as Nano Gateway to connect to TTN backend network?

Gateways
1

Any idea if we can use Lopy as gateway to connect to TTN ? I am asking this question because Lopy team claim the Lopy node can act as Nano Gateway and it can connect 100 Lopy nodes. Thanks

2

The LoPy will at best be a single channel gateway. It will never be a full gateway, due to the components used.

Whether the LoPy can be programmed to be a single channel gateway is a question best answered by the LoPy team or one of the alpha/beta testers as they are the only ones with sufficient knowledge at this time.

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Thanks @kersing …is there any body from Lopy team ,who are on this forum and through some light on this question.

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@ramapati
@kersing is correct, I took some time to read information about lopy, and here what I understand and what could be done:

  • I think they claims it can act as a gateway, but I would call this a “smart node” because what I’ve read, is that the Lopy connected to Lora network will act as a Bluetooth gateway for the other Lopy. IE Lopy arround speaks to Lopy master (GW) that will forward packet to Lora network. Of course dedicated firmware for BT need to be implemented in all Lopy and and Lora protocol to the master one. This idea is really smart because it won’t consume too much energy but master node and gateway will need to be close each other, because BLE does not have 15Km range :wink:
  • And 2nd solution, just as a classic Lora single gateway as speaked around this forum, with all Lopy speaking Lora to Gateway.

Anyway in both architecture, Master (Gateway) need to be conected to Internet (3G, Wifi, …) to speak to TTN servers

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Thanks @Charles for your time and feedback on Lopy nodes. It would be interesting if Lopy act as Lora Single gateway ( your 2nd point) because people can buy these cheap Gateway ( although limited in use as it would be single channel) for test and specific R & D use cases.

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@ramapati
And code for this is already existing, so port should be straightforward :wink:
Original colde here
https://github.com/things4u/ESP-1ch-Gateway
Forked and modified for WeMos Shield here

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Dear Ramapati and Charles,

We specify the LoPy as a nano-gateway, because you can use the LoRa radio (powered by the SX1272) as a single channel Gateway and the WiFi radio as the link with the Internet. When we launched on Kickstarter we quoted a LoPy-to-LoPy range of 5KM, but the tests performed with out beta modules have shown a range between 8.8KM (with SF7) and 22KM (with SF12). We have also stated a maximum capacity of 100 nodes (mostly due to its single channel nature), but this is just a reference number, depending on the application and traffic of the network you might be able to connect a higher number of nodes.

The answer to the original question is YES, you can use the LoPy as Nano Gateway to connect to the TTN backend via WiFi. Implementing a packet forwarder in Python running on the LoPy that follows the TTN API is dead simple and we’ll be releasing a SDK for this very soon.

Cheers,
Daniel

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Thanks @danicampora …it is really a good news…Will Lopy come with standard configuration for nano gateway so that it can easily be setup out of box?

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Looking forward to that SDK and/or any other instructions that help getting the LoPy connected to TTN.
Hoping to receive my 2 LoPy’s this week and this is use-case #1 I would like to try for them.

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Good news! Pycom implemented the Semtech protocol and the LoPy can now connect to TTN as a single channel gateway.

Details here: https://forum.pycom.io/topic/810/new-firmware-release-1-6-7-b1-lorawan-nano-gateway-with-ttn-example/

I have one connected already.

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It took some time, but after a lot of trial and error (and some additional problems because the TTN backend wasn’t always online), it works. Have a look at the video by Alex and the discussion that followed: