We are to deploy commercial sensors with both Bluetooth (BLE) and LoRa radio.
Initially we would like to deply sensors with ability to stream raw data via BLE to gateways in close proximity, and subsequently only via LoRa.
What gateways allows addition of, or already includes Bluetooth radio, and would allow us to add a custom application for data acquisition via BLE, maybe based of openWRT ?
I have a Sentrinus RG186 that has Bluetooth radio, but im not sure its acess is exposed to the users
For clarity, we do LoRaWAN on TTN/TTI here - not point 2 point LoRa.
Very very few I suspect, I only know of one. The RG186 has a BLE radio but it’s not used as part of the gateway - it’s part of the standard board so that someone could add BLE to it.
Most gateways are configured via Ethernet/WiFi. Some by BLE. I can’t think of any via NFC.
Devices are configured via serial (USB), BLE or NFC depending on what MCU is being used.
There are devices that will listen for advertising broadcasts which can have filters setup which can then relay via LoRaWAN. So you can have lots of BLE listening devices and one or two gateways to get the data home.
There is an ESP32-S3 based gateway, LoRaDIO1302, that could be programmed to listen for BLE advertising and send it via WiFi. Then you could add the LW concentrator card to turn it in to a LW gateway.
All of this is somewhat speculative as you’ve not told us what this commercial sensor is, so any comment above could be deviled in a heart beat. And the why BLE initially would help - the range is so much less - using BLE to LW devices like a suitably programmed LoRaDIO32 solves many range issues.
Thanks for the reply.
The device is for condition monitoring, accelerometer data sampled at 40khz. During initial deployment we would like the option to stream raw data via BLE, the alternative would be to stand next to the sensor with an app. After running the machine through known cycles, on device analysis parameters are updated and the device can switch to LoraWan and only send results rather than raw data. Also the gateway can be installed in a proper location where it can service multiple devices.
Check MikroTik KNOT LR8, from their website:
KNOT features so many protocol support and connectivity options: 2.4 GHz wireless, Bluetooth, GPS, LoRa®, 2x 100 Mbps Ethernet ports with PoE-in and PoE-out, Micro-USB. Maximum convenience at the lowest cost!
With the Bluetooth interface, you can use the KNOT for asset tracking and telemetry based on Bluetooth advertisement packets. KNOT supports any BLE tag that sends advertisement data. iBeacon, Eddystone or any other format. It has powerful filters for forwarding only relevant packets and ignoring others.