I am want to buy an Outdoor gateway to cover a wider area than possible with an indoor version. But what to buy ? My criteria are coverage, price, design and energy consumption. The last is barely fround in any document. Of course I don’t want to run an additionaly server. I started with the TTN indoor gateway, which covers for about 3km.
For an Outdoor gateway like the Dragino DLOS8, which is 250€ and consumes about 6 Watts. But, what’s it coverage ?
An alternative could be The Things Outdoor gateway, which is stated to cover about 10km, but no info is provided about energy consumption and it costs some more. Here a setup is provided at TTN, which is missing for the Dragineo gateway.
So, what do you recommend ? Which low cost gateway is the best ?
Unless the manufacturer did something wrong, coverage really depends on the antenna and location.
Power consumption of the LoRa part of a gateway is going to be around 3-3.5 watts average, add to that what the embedded computer draws, what a mobile data modem (if used) draws. And then the big question is the efficiency of the power supply, ie, the LoRa card has a linear regulator that will increase the power to run the radio by 50%. Ultimately you’ll probably see most gateway falling in the 5-8 watt range.
The big thing to realize is that ordinary gateway really aren’t that different radio wise - mostly its the embedded computer, how that is managed, the packaging, heat removal and power conversion where they differ.
Help us out here - what are you trying to achieve - particularly as you are focused on power consumption - do you need solar - how are you connecting to the internet?
Think in terms of what it would cost you for failure - a few $$$ more may make the difference between success & failure.
One option is two or even three well placed gateways …
Setup for the DLOS8 is a no brainer. Don’t let that be the decider. (My early release TTOG was harder to configure)
Performance will not be too different. The antenna used and its placing will be a bigger factor when it comes to coverage. The TTOG with the antenna mounted at a sub optimal location had difficulty covering 3 km. With a better antenna position the same unit has >20km ‘hits’.
I haven’t been able to test the DLOS8 under similar conditions but initial tests show excellent performance.
I think the biggest difference is the build quality. The TTOG has a metal case with sturdy mounts. The DLOS8 uses a plastic case with (for me) too small screws. I have decided not to mount the DLOS8 as is at places where it will be exposed to high winds.
My DLOS8 and TTOG are both mounted in full sun in the ‘heatwave’ in NL and both run without issue. The TTOG was outside during last winter as well without any issues. (No data on that for the DLOS8 yet as the product is too new).
Dragino has implemented the beginnings of a remote management solution into their latest firmware. (I modified it a bit for more resilience) As I have one of the early TTOGs that has been deployed almost from the start (and I haven’t been able to update the firmware because that involves taking it down from a 15 meter church tower) I can’t speak for its remote management capabilities.
Given that you can find sites for multiple gateways. I have gateways in the attic waiting for someone from the (local) TTN community to give them roof space…
Hi Kersing, i have a question about DLOS8, possible use this devise for a control of air quality for a project of smart City?, we need get about 3 km of conexion bettween the node(air quality sensor) and the gateway(DLOS8). What is your recomendation? thank you.
Whether that is possible depends on the the node, its antenna and the placement of it, the placement of the gateway antenna and the obstacles in between. The only way to know is to test. Signal propagation in a city is extremely difficult to predict.
The DLOS8 I’ve got performs well.
I haven’t been able to use TTNmapper since the gateway was relocated to a better position but with the less optimal placement I’ve got up to 8km at SF7 if there were no major obstacles between the gateway and the node. That gateway was located at the edge of a village and the node was away from that village.
Yes as long as you make sure not to use an UNO/NANO or a board with comparable low amounts of flash. One of the newer models with a 32 bit controller like the Zero would be best. Or you can go for the Adafruit Feather M0. Whatever you choose, make sure to buy for the right frequency (868 or 915MHz) for your location.
Hi all,
As of today, can you recommend me an outdoor gateway with built-in 3G/4G backhaul? Price ist not the most important criteria, but reliability is, because they (probably 2-3 devices) will be installed at remote places (no wired Internet connection available). So best would be kind of deploy-and-forget device.
I’m thinking of buying the TTOG, however, reading through different threads here, I am a bit unsure how reliable they work.
Any hints are welcome, even for different gateways that are known to work well in this setting.
Martin
Forgot to mention which devices I found through searching this forum:
LG308 with LTE Card
DLOS8 (there seems to exist 4G Option)
Multitech Conduit
TTOG
So far, from reading the forum, LG308 and DLOS8 (non-4G version?) seem to work reliably. Not sure with Multitech Conduit and TTOG though.
3G/4G and LoRaWAN aren’t a deploy-and-forget combination unless you are in the middle of a major conurbation with fantastic mobile coverage - so anticipate spending a little more on both the kit & the mobile provider. I’d look here and on the internet at large - if it’s being sold by a number of different online vendors, you can assume a certain degree of reliability.
thanks @descartes for your reply - in fact mobile coverage is good / very good on all sites.
But It is in fact maximal reliability and resilience against temporary power or 4G outages that I’m looking for. The gateway should ideally handle such things without direct physical intervention.
I hope to find one device which is known to cope well with those situations.
Even if you start with a manufacturer configuration, definitely insist on something where the mobile data modem is an interchangeable module of standard form factor (not soldered down) and where it’s known that it’s possible to put your own system software on the box. Otherwise your investment in hardware is only worth as much as the manufacturer’s willingness to promptly fix bugs and address the challenges of your use situations.
Architecturally, avoid anything that relies on an SD card for the system image - preferably something that uses NOR or bare NAND, or at most eMMc.
Thanks @cslorabox, those are things I didn’t think of. Do you have any device in mind when writing this?
Maybe it’s even better to split LoRaWAN and LTE part into two devices? This way I could take any popular 4G modem (e.g. NetGear) and any reliable gateway.
I must admit that the sheer number of possibilites is a bit intimidating.
We ended up building our own; basically a carrier board with some glue to tie together processor, LoRa and LTE plug-in modules - though the glue does a fair amount we specifically needed, too.
Maybe it’s even better to split LoRaWAN and LTE part into two devices? This way I could take any popular 4G modem (e.g. NetGear) and any reliable gateway.
That can be an option, though it means you need to find your own weather housing. I guess the advantage of separate systems is needing less engineering attention to the internal details of each; I preferred having everything integrated so the software could be more aware of the detailed state of each, but still as a submodule where a different version could be be substituted with corresponding software changes.