Hello
Sorry for my ignorance, because i’m new-be person in this LoraWAN world , so im starting this journey and would like to buy or build gps tracker which will use LoraWAN network to communication, would you advice how frequently may i send updates let say about location to LoraWAN gateway from the end device for EU region?Thank you
Slawek
This is a much discussed topic on the forum please use search (top right or each forum page) to review previous discussions. Also there are online air time calculators for LoRaWAN - again much discussed and referenced please search. Bottom line is TTN isnt a great choice for ‘real’time’ due to limited airtime under FUP, LoRaWAN legally a bit better but still much compromise on airtime use - better if you can guarantee use of lower spreading factors - SF7/8, gets worse as node distance to GW and SF increases - SF11/12. Will entireley depend on your use case and needs and type of device you select, Would suggest a configurable unit off the shelf to experiment with before your think of building your own if you do not yet understand the basics and limits!
That said many users do use them (myself included - I typically have 3-6 permanently in my cars mapping community coverge as I travel around!) you just need to understand the constraints…
This ONLY works where there is gateway coverage - as soon as you are out of range of a gateway, it stops being a tracker and starts being an ornament.
So first thing to do is to check you have coverage.
Hello Jeff
Thank you for prompt response, yeah i see that TTN is not great especially that covering of my province is almost empty but i think that on my early step will be good choice to make a experiments, then i think that will try build my own server let say Chirpstack to more play with this technology, anyway will try find more details.
Have a good day.
Slawek
Yes I have plan to track items within my gateway coverage , and I’m wondering if may i go to send updates frequently than 5 minutes
You have to plan for the node going into long distance mode, which implies spreading factor 12. So to stay within the fair useage limit, in that mode you can send a location packet maybe once per hour, as each packet will have an air time of around 1.4 seconds.
GPS tracking applications, are mostly a poor fit for TTN, because of the fair useage limit.
Keep in mind the legal (as in blue lights and fines/jail time) limit is 1% transmission time in the LoRaWAN frequency band in EU. That means after a 1.4 second transmission you are not allowed to transmit for 99*1.4 = 1386 seconds = ~23 minutes.
Hopefully you are aware that TTN coverage is by people like us deploying gateways, so better coverage starts with you!
I’d leave that a year, maybe more, until you’ve got the hang of devices & integrations. And for clarity, we only do LoRaWAN on TTN/TTI here, so your aspirations in that regard are off-topic - but with some research and learning (link at top of forum page), you’ll see that TTS OS is on-topic.
btw solutions which based on the Lora P2P connection they have the same transmission time limitations as for LoraWAN?
The legal restrictions are those that apply in your country, and are the same for LoRaWAN and P2P LoRa. LoRaWAN is at its basics P2P LoRa in any case.
In most of Europe, duty cycles are 1% @ 868Mhz and 10% @ 434Mhz, but you do need to check the actual restrictions for your particular country, there could be differences.
Thank you all for your comments
Equally off topic for this forum, to re-iterate, this is funded by TTI for discussions about LoRaWAN on their platform.
Hello guys.
I hope you all doing well. I am a new member here in LoraWAN world so please be patient with me.
I’m an IT engineer from Algeria and I had discovered LoraWAN just in the last week because I’m working on project about tracking animals specially cows. I’ve saw many solutions and I really like how people developed their ideas in real life. So, I do have some couple of questions, and I hope you may answer them.
Q1: Is loraWAN available in Algeria?
Q2: Should I have internet connection or there is a way to do it without the internet?
Q3: What are the materials needed for this project in details please with the cost of each material?
Q4: What is the distance of the detection?
Q5: What you recommend as a software and app for such a project?
Before going any further with this as a TTN project, you need to be sure its a good fit for TTN.
When you say ‘tracking’ what exactly do you mean, GPS location ?
And if GPS location; is it acceptable that you only get a tracking update from each animal once per hour, or do you need tracking updates more often ?
Actually, I think TTN will be a suitable solution for my project especially when there are some similar examples such as Moovement and what I meant by tracking. I mean GPS location with tracking update every 15 min or less and I wish if there is a way to get live tracking.
Will be a great benefit for you to read the documentation a bit
The first video you see will already help you.
Only if you can guarantee the use of lower SF’s, this in turn implies multiple GW’s in reasonably close proximity to the animals and/or also efficient LoRa antenna use as many trackers especially the smaller kind e.g. for tags etc are not rated for full 2/3.1db gain and often come in <<0dbi reducing effective range and efficasy thereby triggering higher SF’s, which then limits potential update rate as mentioned above - you will need to consider using fixed or limited set of SF’s and e.g. ADR isnt recommended for moving nodes…
Sounds like you have a LOT of background work to do to start to ask reasonable and targeted questions - reading documentation and watching video’s etc. LoRaWAN has many complex and moving parts and your questions so far are far too wide and open to be addresses sensibly on the forum… good luck with your investigations, we all look forward to stepping back in and helping answer specifics once your have narrowed the field, both in terms of the technology and implementations and subsequently in terms of specific products for consideration.
We are all volunteers answering questions so you will need to do a lot of the work yourself or, if you don’t want to, hire someone to do the work for you. Don’t expect us to perform a free consulting job for you.
Please appreciate that the forum cannot know what you mean by that.
You appear to want something called ‘live tracking’ but you need to explain, and exactly, what ‘live tracking’ is.
I would disagree.
You would only stay within the fair useage limits of the free to use TTN, in limited circumstances.
Read the early part of the thread you commented on; to stay within fair useage limits, you need to plan for a location update of once every 60 minutes, you appear to want updates far more often than that.