The LoRaWAN dragon comes to roost at my house

LoRaWAN. Its a magical network that uses unlicensed spectrum (915MHz for me), runs longish distances with stupidly low power (years of battery life), and is designed to make your things network in internet-styles. And now its in my house.

At right we see a Dragino gateway. Who is Dragino you ask? Well, in their own words: “Dragino dedicates to promote Open Source IoT solution. Our Open Source products are sold world widely and gain good names in the Open Source Internet of Things filed.” I think that is pretty clear! They make a gateway (and you don’t necessarily need a gateway in LoRa) that runs OpenWRT. And they have a YouTube video with real production values (see end).

Coupled with that I have a pair of ESP32 LoRa micro, powered up, and happily chatting. That was easy!

OK, digging in a bit, this is a single-channel device, it seems it is more of a node than a gateway. Hmm. But, well, the company has done a decent job here, documentation on connecting to The Things Network, on using it with open source, on compiling for it. Its not common for Shenzen-express-type products to have anything other than the box they came in. So kudos for that. Even the ESP32 MCU’s came w/ a github repo (and a web site, a lot of electronics that arrive at my house don’t have that nicety or even a brand name). Times they are a changing!

The interior? Sure. Click the thumbnails to see the glorious detail.

 


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6 Responses to “The LoRaWAN dragon comes to roost at my house”

  1. Heinz Wolter

    Good to see you hacking again Don!

  2. Roberto Quinones

    Is that first photo of your guest bedroom?

  3. Alex

    What does single channel means?

  4. Jayme Snyder

    I’ve been wanting to put a few humidity sensors in various places to control bathroom fans etc.
    This seems like the economically viable, less obtrusive way to do it…

    1. db

      xiaomi zigbee.
      much simpler cheaper approach. its what i used for the cat house temp/humidity

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