I agree there’s a complete forum of very helpful ppl - my point is - I paid $355 CDN for a product. - Why should I go to someone else’s forum to figure out why it does not work. Laird - why not have a live chat line, why not support your customers without them having to “fault find” and “fix” a $355 item I bought from you??..
Matchx Gateway is the same - cheap - nice looking - nice LoRa backend - no support. Get one - figure it out yourself - their website forum is not up to snuff - yet we as the community come here to “fault find” and “fix” your stuff.
I pride myself on teaching ppl this technology but god the manufacturers make it hard to use their hardware.
Both Laird and MatchX do offer support - through https://laird-ews-support.desk.com for Laird and by e-mail from MatchX - I usually get answers within 24h. They are however B2B operations aimed at industry professionals so you don’t get all the handholding of a consumer facing company.
But also if you have problems connecting to TTN why shouldn’t the TTN forums be your first port of call?
I just switched the Laird gateway to another service and it’s connected and forwarding packets.
It’s not the gateway.
I have dealt with Aaron from Matchx from the beginning - he replies very fast but he’s sales. I want to demo his gateway with an IoT meet up group that we formed here in Toronto. I can’t keep “fault finding” so I can showcase someone’s product.
As a customer of anything whether B2B of which I am, or as a consumer, I don’t think we as individuals should have to figure out how to fix hardware. An analogy would be you purchase a car and the manufacturer tells you to figure out the fault codes on the CAN bus.
Just go ahead and order it. Just be aware of the point @jmarcelino raised regarding support of consumers. @DarrenO your statement regarding no TTN support seems excessive, when did you post your question and how long did you wait for the community (which are all volunteers by the way) to respond before stating there is no support?
Have you tried sending packets with it connected to TTN?
TTN quite often doesn’t show “connected” message although the gateway is in fact connected. Seems to be a recurring problem.
Usually B2B companies keep support costs low so they can offer better prices to professional users who don’t need the handholding. If anyone does need the support they can order from a consultant/end-user retailer.
Given a quick start that even shows how to connect your gateway to TTN I don’t think they skimped on documentation. I’ve bought far more expensive products with worse documentation.
Regarding TTN support, as you asked for help a couple of hours ago I think you should wait to give people time to respond before stating TTN (which is a community) does not support it.
@kersing I am not complaining about verbal support - I love this forum and the volunteers that help each other.
I love to read - I am ex-military and have grown to appreciate good instructions/documentation, my point being I don’t care how much I paid for something - I would love to have a “great owner’s manual with instructions”.
For logging, go to LoRa tab, advanced item in the left menu. Now look at the bottom of your browser where you should see two arrows and ‘Auto Update Logs’. Click the up arrow to show a window and click ‘Auto update logs’ to show the logging.
Gateway ID on TTN should be the gateway id found in the left column on the LoRa page on the gateway. Is that the one you are using? (It should end in 2935AF)
Thanks Kersing, very tempted, but have decided to find out a bit more before ordering.
Hopefully more posts on this thread can give me the re-assurance I need.
Yes please take your time to buy this gateway - I’m trying to snap up all the stock I can Currently 5 deployed and the 6th arriving Monday.
By the way Laird said they are working on a native TTN protocol forwarder - if you don’t like using the ‘legacy’ (but more standard) UDP one you should be able to choose.
Currently 5 deployed and the 6th arriving Monday.