Need some help to get started with TTN

[PAHVelthuis]

Hi all,

I have spent numerous hours in reading articles and watching Youtube video’s.
Now I’m having a good understanding of what Lora, LoraWan and TTN implies and would like to get my hands dirty with some hands-on experience.

For this, I would like to start small and simple; connect a node to an existing Gateway.
Although I have good programming and soldering experience I would like to start with a “known-good” setup, or at least a setup which is guaranteed to work.

Understand I’m not the first one with such question but I’m really stuck in all the options. All solutions I have found come with drawbacks and it looks like there’s no silver bullet available

Some examples:

• The Things Node looks ideal, but no longer produced. Would it make sense to try to find one?
• TTGO boards, examples which I have found needs to be ported from Platform.io and are not always compatible with the different board revisions.
• Some reference boards used during Lora conferences, dating from 2017 so likely outdated information / status ?

Any advice?

[descartes (Nick McCloud)]

Here’s my latest war & peace on getting started:

Australian Student looking to experiment with budget lora tech

@hidara - do not do as the bulk of the engineers in the world do, which would be: Skip the reading Start with a multi-part project Use the bare minimum of components Skip the reading Ask questions on here without any indication of prior research LoRaWAN has many parts to it, try not to have too many elements being worked on in parallel unless you have plenty of duct tape to reseal your head when your brain explodes, but a good running order would be something like: Order a gateway and TWO di…

@PAHVelthuis

or at least a setup which is guaranteed to work.

- more in your hands than you’d believe, unless you get a pre-made device (Dragino LDS02) with a The Things Indoor Gateway or if you have a bit more money, a LIG16 Indoor LoRaWAN Gateway.

When you say “existing gateway”, when getting to grips with LoRaWAN we highly recommend having a gateway of your own so you can look at the logs hence the recommendations above.

@PAHVelthuis

it looks like there’s no silver bullet available

You should take up comedy!

[kersing (Jac Kersing)]

@PAHVelthuis

Now I’m having a good understanding of what Lora, LoraWan and TTN implies

And

@PAHVelthuis

connect a node to an existing Gateway

Looks like there is still some misunderstanding as nodes connect to the network, not to a gateway. I know I’m picking nits, but these little details are what results in many hours of frustration when you get them wrong,

@PAHVelthuis

it looks like there’s no silver bullet available

That’s right, there is not one use case either.

If you want something useful look for an LHT65, reports temperature and humidity at configurable intervals, indoor rated only. It’s a known good device if purchased with recent firmware (not 2 year and stock that has been gathering dust).
Make sure to get a unit for your region using the right frequencies.

[PAHVelthuis]

I know, the concentrator is transparent and it’s the node which connects to the network.
All I wanted to say is; I want to start with a node first. Setting up a gateway is the second step.

Thanks for the LHT65 one; haven’t came across during my search but surely looks an interesting/affordable node to start with !

[descartes (Nick McCloud)]

@PAHVelthuis

Setting up a gateway is the second step.

It’s easier and allows you to debug the device setup.

[bertrik]

Perhaps you can hook up with a local TTN community, see https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/community

The people there already have some experience with the device side (getting data to the network) and also with the backend side (getting your data out the other end). They may already have a gateway available, e.g. give you access to the live data of the gateway or lend you a TTIG.

If you get a board with an RN2483 chip, all of the device-side LoRaWAN stuff is handled by the chip, making things somewhat easier. Your device-side code only has to send high-level commands to the chip, and there are libraries for that. If you get a board with a bare LoRa chip (e.g. SX1272 or SX1262), like a heltec/ttgo ESP32 LoRa board, you need to configure / compile the LoRaWAN stack yourself, which is more of a challenge (but still doable).

[PAHVelthuis]

Thanks all !

just bought the Dragino LSN50-V2 which comes with a great user manual I believe.