I’m currently running two Mikrotik LR8 gateways and bought a (used) Dragino LPS8 on a whim. This will be a short comparison describing my impressions of both gateways; there’s not much out there on actual experience with gateways, so maybe this is of interest for those looking for reasonably low-cost gateways.
Summary
Both gatways work. The Dragino LPS8 has a surprisingly nice antenna, but a confusing and partially non-functional web interface that leaves the impression of a lack of care when it comes to firmware. The LR8 has fewer features, but has a working LoRa message log, more mounting options, and at least 5 years of software updates.
Hardware
Since there’s only one concentrator chip you can use, the actual LoRa performance of both gateways should be pretty much identical, which some quick tests confirm to be the case.
The LR8 has slightly better hardware (newer CPU running at 650 MHz as opposed to the LPS8’s 400 MHz), but otherwise, they are pretty comparable as far as RAM (64 MiB) and Flash (16 MiB) are concerned. Both have one 100 Mbit Ethernet port and 802.11n WiFi. The LR8’s SoC supports two WiFi antennas (which are installed), as opposed to the LPS8’s single WiFi antenna, but this is more than enough anyway.
The LPS8 has a surprisingly good external antenna that’s pretty well matched for 868 MHz connected via an SMA connector.
The LR8 comes with a very basic LoRa antenna in the case, but it is not connected by default. It also has an SMA connector for an external antenna. If you want to use the internal antenna, you need to open the case, unplug the SMA pigtail from the LoRa concentrator card and plug in the antenna. The external antenna connector is placed in an awkward position requiring the use of an extension cable; this clearly is intended for connecting a larger outdoor antenna and not for indoor use.
The LR8 has multiple mounting options (including a stand for indoor use) and can be employed for light-duty outdoor use (i.e. pole-mounted and protected from water from below) as well, whereas the LPS8 is an indoor gateway with no provisions for being used outside.
The LPS8 has a USB-C socket for power and needs a separate 5V, 2A power supply.
The LR8 is powered by an included power adapter that can be plugged into the device itself or used with an included passive PoE injector cable. There is, however, no proper PoE support. The web interface gives information about the supply voltage, so power supply problems using very long cables can be diagnosed.
The LPS8 seems to be a custom hardware design that uses a subassembly for the SoC and includes the LoRa circuitry on the main board.
The LR8 is based on Mikrotik’s wAP series of wireless routers with just a LoRa concentrator card plugged in and a different internal antenna.
Software
The LPS8 is easy to setup intuitively without any surprises. The LR8, on the other hand, has a peculiar standard configuration that lends itself to the user being locked out if the network interface setup and firewall configuration is not done in the correct sequence. However, since there is not much to configure anyway, initial setup should be completed within 15 minutes, even with multiple attempts and device resets of the LR8.
The LPS8 has a very basic web interface with few configuration options and not much information provided. The LR8 has an extensive web interface, but most of it is related to networking, as it’s still pretty much a wireless router from Mikrotik with an additional LoRa concentrator. However, the LoRa features are pretty sensible, including a traffic log that can be filtered by device address to help with diagnosis. I tried different firmware versions for the LPS8, including the most recent version, but I couldn’t get the LoRa gateway traffic log to work. In my opinion, that’s a huge problem if you use your own gateway for debugging during device development. Of course, TTN provides a traffic log, but it’s cumbersome to use and I don’t think everything received by the gateway shows up there. The LR8, on the other hand, displays a list of the last 120 LoRa messages and provides more detailed information when you click on a message. This might not be needed for operating a gateway, but is very helpful when you develop your own nodes.
The LPS8’s web interface provides no way of specifying the LoRa antenna gain for transmission power adjustment. The LR8 does. I haven’t looked into other options to adjust transmitter power, but not being able to just configure this poses a regulatory problem. Essentially, you’re limited to using the supplied antenna.
The LR8 has just the UDP packet forwarder, the LPS8 can be configured to use the more modern Basic Station as well. (While security updates are available quickly, Mikrotik is slow with feature updates; I reckon we will get Basic Station support some time, though. The LPS8 supports it with slightly worse hardware, so the LR8 should be able to support it as well.) The LPS8 supports various commercial LoRaWAN networks requiring their own special software out of the box, while the LR8 has no support for this at all. I haven’t explored this further, as I have no interest in using these networks at the moment. The LPS8 runs an OpenWRT fork, but it’s all a bit opaque. There are firmware binaries and the current one doesn’t even include a changelog (it’s empty) and a github repository of the OpenWRT fork that hasn’t been updated in some time. While I prefer open source products for ideological and practical reasons, the LPS8 isn’t open source hardware and I’m still wondering if the provided OpenWRT fork’s repository contains the complete software or if there are any proprietary closed-source parts. I couldn’t find out the source version used for the firmware build, which further complicates things. I see no advantage in having open source software if the repositories and releases are not well-organized.
The LR8 runs Mikrotik’s closed-source RouterOS, but Mikrotik claims to provide at least 5 years of software updates from the time of purchase.
Conclusion
In my opinion, the LPS8 is shockingly underwhelming. Of course, as a LoRaWAN gateway, it works just fine, probably as well as any other reasonably designed LoRaWAN gateway. However, unfortunately, the whole experience with the web interface is just so bad: a lack of configuration options, a large amount of loosely organized features that change the gateway’s operating mode when activated, very badly designed/structured web interface and a very ugly web interface that often just displays console output verbatim. At times, it doesn’t work at all, as for example in the case of the Gateway Traffic display, which should display some messages and details, but stays empty (I tried the current and the previous firmware version and even different browsers, but to no avail; however, the gateway happily receives and forwards messages, so there is indeed some traffic). Overall, the LPS8 leaves the impression that it was put together without much care. I understand that this is one of the very few early affordable gateways, and for that the manufacturer needs to be commended, but in my opinion, it just doesn’t cut the mustard nowadays. The web interface is no joy to use and doesn’t instill the trust in me to think that the software will be updated regularly and maintained properly for years to come. While you don’t need a flashy web interface, I get the impression that it’s more of a focus to quickly support new features than to provide a nice user experience. The lack of basic transmission power configuration options to ensure regulatory compliance when using a different antenna is another disadvantage.
The LR8’s web interface, on the other hand, is a bit overwhelming at first. It uses Mikrotik’s RouterOS, which is far more feature-rich (and exposes everything) than you’d probably need for a LoRaWAN gateway. There are a few basic LoRa configuration options including the antenna gain (which is important for regulatory requirements) and then it works fine. There really isn’t much to say about it, it works just fine, the hardware and software seem well designed. The LoRa message log is great for debugging, but unfortunately, it’s very hard to get it off the device. Ideally, you’d want to have this log in particular forwarded to some logging server, but that doesn’t seem to be supported. From the way it feels, the LoRaWAN support clearly is somewhat of an afterthought with next to no integration into the rest of the software (e.g. no graphing or statistics for LoRa); however, the important things work well. The included antenna is okay for indoor use and very short range (a few hundred meters at best), but you need to open the case to connect it anyway. The large choice of mounting options is nice, but you always end up with parts you don’t use.
Currently, the LPS8 is a bit more expensive, but let’s just say that the LPS8 and the LR8 cost roughly the same for the sake of argument. Given this, I’d choose the LR8 in a heartbeat; it’s just the much better designed product backed by a larger manufacturer that I trust to provide software updates over a reasonable lifetime of the product. The internal antenna is more of an afterthought with quite limited range and connecting an external antenna is clearly intended for mounting outside, but at least in my opinion, these are minor gripes in comparison to the lack of care in the LPS8’s web interface.
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