I want to use Lora and a Wi-Fi gateway at home, on the 3rd floor of a building.
It will have to communicate with 5 to 10 devices in the basement (-2), which represents 6 levels of concrete to cross.
In addition, the basement is in a building 200 m away (it is a condominium with several buildings).
Which gateway would you recommend to collect these devices (fault recovery of boilers, VMC-CMV and lifting pumps)?
At the best price of course.
TTIG seems too limited in terms of coverage?
Why can’t the DRAGINO LG02 work? with 2 channels, is it compatible with all devices? the range seems good, right?
more expansive but is Tektelic KONA Micro Lite IoT LoRaWAN Gateway, OK?
Because that is not a LoRaWAN gateway. If you want to use plain Lora and implement everything yourself it is a valid choice, for LoRaWAN and TTN it is not. The LG08 from Dragino is an option.
Or you wait a couple of months for new hardware to become available which allows building a cheap(er) full LoRaWAN gateway yourself.
Thanks a lot for your answers.
Without response on TTIG, I understand that you confirm its coverage too limited for my need.
Will the dragino easily cover my need to go from the top of the building to the basement of the neighboring building?
Is this the LG308 or LPS08? I understand that the LG308 just has a SIM card for 4G and more, right?
I can not confirm nor deny its coverage is too limited. Coverage depends on too many factors to be predictable in your use case. The only way to validate would be to try.
What you have outlined above as use case I would actually start with a TTIG and try - low cost easy to deploy and if more coverage needed then not a huge waste of cost to swap out (or simply add another TTIG?!)…if you were looking to get many (10’s?) km I would suggest others. Currently I am in long term test with 5 TTIG’s and other than the expected websockets based disconnects and potential odd missed messages in low traffic areas as a result I have found them to be ok within 500m-2.5km.
and note my reasoning for deployment vs full GW. Have set the TTIG up again for longer term test deployment earlier in January this year and just back this afternoon from drive-by trials mapping coverage in a new location in the building - got similar results to those called out in the story. If the TTIG doesnt appeal I have used many others including various RPi builds + either RAK or iMST concentrator cards, Multitech, Laird, Dragino LPS8, Things Kickstarter, RAK Enterprise/Outdoor, etc…am about to test the Tektelic Kona Micro GW - will report back in a week or two on 1st impressions - cant comment on the n-Fsse build called out above as they have never sent me review unit and no customers spec’d so far. Have many clients also using Kerlink micro/femto GW’s to good effect but have had no recent experience with these only the earlier full GW’s.
Just stay well away from the Single/Dual Channel Packet Forwarders such as the LG02 you called out initially
I can’t wait to see the other tests because my doubts are mainly about the fact that the sensor will be in the basement. The distance will only be 100 to 200 m which will not be a problem.
Unfortunately I only find tests on distance but never on the basement
Thanks for your help
Testing out Dragino LG308 right now, seems ok at good price. Straight forward to configure, ok support through emails, has wifi and dual Ethernet ports.
In our company daily work we face many challenges in large modern and old buildings.
We have surveyed some of the top London Iconic buildings.
More recently we have faced the issue of concrete basements on -2 or even -4 below the 0 level(Ground).These have no wifi or cellular signal allowed by the companies in question.
You will need to physically situate your sensors at the lowest level and work backwards with the selected gateway. Ideally the gateway would be on Ground. But it is likely you will not penetrate more than -1.
We use Laird Gateways and have resisted looking at cheap gateways.
In some clients buildings we use a daisychain approach sensor to sensor mesh to get to up the Ground level. Then than data can be backhauled to the data server. Often using an alternative 868Mz RF but not LoRa.
We are always willing to try any other configuration with LoRa sensors - but the sub 0 level is always a challenge on most RF protocols.
Try to avoid the antenna vertical null! Set on an angle or even horizontal (and reflect that in the node also) - limits what can be done in wider community/environment but can improve in building vertical penetration. On larger buildings offset ant to edge (place 2 - opposite sides/corners?) and stay vertical etc… lots of tricks that can be played - also never underestimate the power of scattering - esp with a resilient RF like LoRa ;-). Placing GW’s near lift shafts or stairwells can also help vertical penetration
Thanks everybody for your response and experience.
I can see it is possible but difficult and try different position for the antenna.
So I can try.
Thanks
I’d (almost) agree. I worked hard to register, download and install the Kona FT Windows application, and all i could get it do was “find my gateway”. Very annoying as i only run Linux, but my wife let me borrow hers.
I got the thing working when i used TFTP to upload the requisite files. The answer is in the doc “Configuration User Guide” document # T0004280. You need to register with their support to get access to this.
Personally, if you’re ok with getting your hands dirty and price is a problem then this is the box for you. Now that i’ve got it running it seems rock solid.
Same feeling about this. Very 1999 having to TFTP to it… Solid though once configured. Recently purchased a RAK7258 - So so easy with the web interface to get running!
