Lacuna are normally to be found at https://lacuna.space but their certificate has gone awol and I’ve been trying to reach them for weeks - if anyone knows where @RobSpurrett or @telkamp are that would be good.
Please can you build a simple device using the extensive resources & information that is on the forum and in the docs so that you have some background to your enthusiasm. LoRaWAN has many moving parts, so start out with a pre-built gateway like a TTIG so your DIY device has something to hear it - otherwise you end up debugging both ends which is almost impossible. Then you can build a gateway. Then you can start doing power consumption measurements and range tests. Then you can add a GPS to the device (having already tried the GPS standalone inside the laptop). Do too much at once and you’ll not be able to figure out what isn’t co-operating.
And if you actually tell us your use case, like college asset tracking, as requested above, more useful information could be given - like which radio set to use that is really really good an indoor tracking.
This are laptops given to employees on different construction sites or WFH. Over the last couple of year some have been stolen/lost so we need to keep track of them. The newer 12th gen we are buying do have integrated GPS provided by the supplier so no need for them. But we have 200+ left that are 11th gen and below. Cost wise is not worth to buy a subscription that cost 100£ per device yearly plus the tracker cost. As they approach EOL they would be recycled and newer ones ordered. Then we could move the trackers to other assets that we might need tracking.
I was thinking of setting up a geofence so if the laptop leaves the site(it should be open air) I can track it for a moment at least. As I said above LoRa will be used after the geofence triggers (until then wi-fi module with provide the link to transmit gps data).
So having said this I would need LoRa + GPS + Wi-fi in the module. Battery with be connected directly to the laptop rail and maybe a backup 100mah? battery.
Also could I use a signal amplifier on site to help with GPS/LoRa signal strength ?
Hi Nick, something went wrong with the certificate, but it’s being fixed. We’re still reachable by e-mail. See you at TTC next week?
You can get GPS repeaters, but they will only re-transmit the co-ordinates of the repeater.
Not a lot you can do about TTN signal strength, apart from have a Gateway on or very close to each site.
I could use a gateway on each site as I could reuse them on new sites. There are many gateways in London so I guess can use them as well and add more of mine. Any board to start building a node ?
ROI doesn’t look good here - even if 10% are stolen a year, that’s 20 this year and 18 next, for laptops with a value ~£200 that’s about £8k’s worth - so you need to keep the entire project, hardware for laptops, gateways and your time under that - which as you are demonstrably new to LoRaWAN / GNSS etc, will probably be a goodly chunk of time, at which point it will be close to time to buy replacement laptops. You also have to consider that a short run of 200 custom devices isn’t going to be inexpensive either.
And once they are out of range of a gateway, it’s game over - so having them onsite with the WiFi is a bit pointless and until London has universal TTN coverage, they could easily moved somewhere where they can’t phone home.
Search the forum for discussions on using LoRaWAN for tracking (for board recommendations as well), you’ll see there are good use cases but most of the ones that get discussed won’t work if you assume you can leverage lots community gateways.
So I’d sell the laptops you have whilst they have some reasonable value and replace them with the newer model.
2 Likes
Plus in addition, if the hardware is going inside a Laptop, it sounds like custom hardware, so there would be the considerable costs associated with certification too …
Whilst them in power in the UK promised a bonfire of the regulations following Brexit, I dont see the replacement for CE marking, UKCA, being any different.
1 Like
How much you reckon is going to cost per device. Plenty of time to spare so no issues on that part. And about me being new to this technology I can catch up pretty fast to the basics needed to build trackers/gateways.
I thought about getting cheap trackers for china with SIM slot but am waiting for a reply from EE for bulk sim and low prices since they will be using barely any data.
Also I want to go forward with the project, at least 10 devices for testing and from there we can decide if still going forward with it.
Was looking into the forum for devices and still not sure which one to buy xD Could use a little direction there for the LoRa nodes as for the GPS already have the small modules.
Many thanks for all the input so far
SIM800L + GSM (Or something similar - these are 2G - so soon going to be redundant) - Know it is not LoRaWAN - Cheap easy as you have the laptop battery, you are not to concerned about power.
We get Global IOT sim cards, they are cheap and you can set the data for different packages.
Sorry the SIM will be off topic.
I meant to ask about LoRa devices to pair with the gps module. Sorry if misunderstood.
Just an idea you could also look at.
If you want to go LoraWAN you can nearly use any MCU, M6 and àny lora transceiver.
Look at T-beam with Lora, to name one out of a shopping basket full of device on the market.
How much experience of electronics design and RF stuff do you have ?
Which microcontroller development platforms are you familiar with ?
Any background in getting designs past the requirements of CE\UKCA ?
Tell us what you have considered so far, what criteria you are using for making a choice and what is stopping you just buying “some” to try out along with your own gateway.
At the very least, we have only a hint as to how much actual space you have inside these laptops, so recommending a complete solution like the Onigard 29GTL may be pointless if it’s too big.
And by doing some LoRaWAN tracker product research, it will give you some idea about price in bulk, so you can multiply it by ten for small scale production.
You need to get started with LoRaWAN abstracted from the project - otherwise you will end up trying to drink from the fire hose by trying to do the project whilst learning the fundamentals.
Moderator note: Your GSM / LTE aspirations have to come a very distance second to LoRaWAN for your queries here - we may know stuff but this forum is for discussion about LoRaWAN on TTN/TTI only, not even LoRa point 2 point & definitely no other radios.
1 Like
Than were a nice Cobra back in the day.
Read and sift in Hardware section, nearly every dev board on the market there is something about them in there.
You are just very limited in a Laptop case to retrofit any thing, buy with LoRaWAN you should be able to keep it small. I would open a few case and look carefully at the real-estate available.
You might want to check out the small asset trackers from friend of the forum @onehorse - trades on Tindie as Tilera Corp - look at Cricket or Gnat , havent looked lately there may be others more recent.
If you are doing a small volume then he has already done much of the heavy lift for you wrt form factor and lorawan implementation so you can perhaps focus on fit, interfacing to PC and site testing? Havent used myself so cant personally comment on ease of use or fitness for purpose (perhaps I should try a couple 
) but they have been refernced a few times over the years on the forum and by users I respect, YMMV.
Update: ‘Long’ Cricket not just Cricket!, sorry. There is a long discussion of both over about a 1.5 year period here: Two new LoRa/LoRaWAN Asset Trackers
1 Like
I would say I lack design ideas but with electronics pretty good. Been doing microsoldering for over 2 years on different devices and troubleshooting so thats why I am interested in this project. With arduino used to do the led cube back in the day when it got viral and a sensor report, but lets say pretty much most of the programming was already posted somewhere only requiring small modifications from me.
Ah I’d say none with that. In no project that I tried, did I look at that xD
I got some videos ready to watch explaining the fundamentals of LoRaWAN.
I have seen at solutions like long Cricket and Gnat and they seem really nice but there is no point of buying them ready made since I want to learn more. I will consider buying them in bulk after some initial testing.
Mostly what I ask from you is the LoRa chip to look at, and I can search prebuilt boards or can solder myself by looking schematics online.
The space to be used is the HDD/SSD bay. Meaning 70mm x 100mm x 10-14mm(height).
GPS module is like 1.2$ per piece. Antennas I got some spare and meant to ask if I’m allowed to use a 2M 20Dbi omni-directional one for the gateway and place it on top of the building for better coverage?
Than I can set the max power to 25mW ?
Yeah his products caught my attention while checking the hardware section. But as I said, trying to start myself rather than buying premade as I’m not looking at it just as a solution, more as something to expand my knowledge and at the same time get some use out of it.
Absolutly not.
The UK legal limit in that band is 14dBm (25mw) ERP. A 20dBi antenna, which is an awful lot for an omni, would raise the ERP to 32dBm, way beyond legal.
The basics of legal TTN operation are simple, you cannot improve range by using ‘better’ antennas since the transmit power is already at the legal ERP limit.
1 Like
Considering the size you might need to get the board down too a standard ready made LoRa module such as an RFM98 might be too big. So you might end up using a SX1278 LoRa IC directly and adding all the RF components, not so simple.
I’ve got some videos on hairdressing lined up but it’s not going to make me Vidal Sassoon if I don’t watch them …
No, but you’d know this if you watch the videos or just read the fundamentals section that was linked to - that was just an evenings activity a few nights ago, but here we are.
There is only one supplier of “the chip” and there are a number of easily findable radio boards that use “the chip” - what have you found?
For really poor ones that may not have any reasonable sensitivity - my go to for tracking where I really do need to know where something is is the uBLOX MAX-M8C Pico Breakout with Chip Antenna from Uputronics @ £24 because I know they source directly from uBLOX and know how to make them.
If I need something that’s just OK then I pull apart one of the VK-172 G-mouse USB GPS modules as they appear to be consistently made - prices vary depending on source - I’d get them from Amazon at present so I can test them and return the obvious fakes / dodgy ones.
Our extensive experience answering questions like this on the forum is that starting with a pre-made module means you can concentrate on getting the firmware working, then when you have something you know works, you can upset it all by working on hardware. If you try to do both at the same time, you will just be replicating the same situations we see time & time again. And as everyone here are volunteers, we will get bored with your questions arising from the murky hardware-firmware soup you’ve created for yourself and become quite taciturn.
There is no point asking peeps for advice who have been there and done that and have the T shirts, solder burns & grey hairs to prove it if you are going to forge your own path.
Some actual makes & models other than the ones that have already been mentioned to you will go a long way towards showing you are researching rather than fishing for a gift-wrapped solution which, from what you say, you don’t want anyway.
2 Likes