What kind of data rate can they provide? Can it support audio? Low bit-rate video?
I’ve seen LoRa when Pine64 announced some related products some years back, but I haven’t really gotten into it. If the community is big enough and the bitrate reasonable enough, I might get one to connect my home to my parents home (about 10 miles away, so at the edge of the range) for fun. It would be cool to set up some smart home stuff at both ends that I could host on my own so I can keep an “eye” on my parents stuff when the travel (mostly just door and occupancy sensors, no video).
In theory the protocol can support those formats. With meshtastic it’s only designed for text. You can get some really basic emojis though since they are Unicode.
If its simple enough, I could probably abuse it to send binary data by encoding everything in base64 or something, and writing a simple translator for whatever my app is.
But what does the usable bandwidth look like, and what about latency? If I’m going just out of range from direct communication, I assume I’d be going through other peoples’ nodes, but is that intelligent enough to route messages through efficiently? Or could I see crazy latency spikes?
You are at the edge of what I know :) If you find out, let the rest of us know. I only have vague and hand wavy knowledge at this point of lora slow means lots of latency. GL!
How does this differ from IP over ham radio? It seems like in general, it would just be lower distance and greater reliance on nodes near you, with the trade off being smaller equipment.
Its biggest + in my book is that you don’t have to be a ham to make it work. There are better systems if you want more reliable communications. But its a fun side hobby and, in the event of a power outage, a decent little communicator. Although from personal experience, most of the devices piggy back of your existing cell phones and bluetooth. So ironically as long as the cell towers aren’t blown to hell, your still fine either way.
There may be some miscommunication. I ment that in order to use a majority of the meshtastic devices, they require the android or ios app + bluetooth. Not all, but a vast majority. And most of those will have access to a cell phone tower that will likely not go down, even in the event your neighborhood power goes off. At least where I am at. The devices have often been alluded to a disaster proof communications device. And an alternative to instant messaging. Its not as reliable as some other tech that is out there, but its a fun hobby!
The phones are one reason I don’t think Meshtastic is good for emergency communications. My main Meshtastic devices run off a battery pack that can run them for 2-3 weeks, but I’d also have to keep a phone charged throughout the disaster to use them.
What is the range of a device like this? Is there any chance of using a mesh system like that if you’re not in a city? I’m about 30 miles away from a few towns, so there’s little chance for repeaters to be nearby.
Theoretically you can get 50 ish miles or more with line of sight. In practice, you can get around 10 ish with repeaters. With around 30 devices, our city has effective coverage.
You also have options to use MQTT if you want to make sure a message gets through. But that requires an internet connection.
What about without line of sight? If I get one of these is it going to work while it’s sitting on my desk, or am I going to have to mount some antennas on the roof to actually make it usable? The maps only show like three other people in my city with one, so I’m not sure how useful this will actually be for me.
Honestly, its a fun side project, but without enough nodes its more of a hobby. If you want to make it usable, its probably better to use internet or higher power devices (like ham). Or buy a metric ton of these and throw them up high.
As long as you have a node in sight, it should be good for at least some communication. My little window node gets 20+ nodes.
You can, there are websites that show some of the devices. But from what I’ve found, it’s only showing around 1/4 of the real devices in the area. Or at least where I am at.
I’m on the phone so I’m not sure off the top of my head, but I think someone already linked a couple above.
What is the typical power requirement on these devices? Can it be used to set up IoT sensor nodes in the wild where they work off solar, or do they need periodic tuning/care?
Very low and yes. They work great for IoT, as long as it’s not mission critical stuff as messages can get dropped or arrive out of order sometimes. But for something like monitoring a remote sensor station that’s within the Lora range, without needing a cellular plan, yes.
I got mine recently in a dxent aized city and while there are plenty of nodes popping up on the map, the local channel is pretty quiet. Is that normal?
Yeah, we had to make a weather app on longfast to fill the void. Tech people tend to not talk all that much. We are the strange ones ;)
Most of the weather app was made from a reddit post back a year or so ago. I have no idea where though. App is a python script here if your interested.
The phone app gives the location of nodes want you to know. And most don’t care. For example, in my city there is currently 24 online nodes my window node has interacted with. And 174 in total nodes it’s contacted today.
I maintain three of these devices, if anyone has any questions.
What kind of data rate can they provide? Can it support audio? Low bit-rate video?
I’ve seen LoRa when Pine64 announced some related products some years back, but I haven’t really gotten into it. If the community is big enough and the bitrate reasonable enough, I might get one to connect my home to my parents home (about 10 miles away, so at the edge of the range) for fun. It would be cool to set up some smart home stuff at both ends that I could host on my own so I can keep an “eye” on my parents stuff when the travel (mostly just door and occupancy sensors, no video).
In theory the protocol can support those formats. With meshtastic it’s only designed for text. You can get some really basic emojis though since they are Unicode.
If its simple enough, I could probably abuse it to send binary data by encoding everything in base64 or something, and writing a simple translator for whatever my app is.
But what does the usable bandwidth look like, and what about latency? If I’m going just out of range from direct communication, I assume I’d be going through other peoples’ nodes, but is that intelligent enough to route messages through efficiently? Or could I see crazy latency spikes?
You are at the edge of what I know :) If you find out, let the rest of us know. I only have vague and hand wavy knowledge at this point of lora slow means lots of latency. GL!
How does this differ from IP over ham radio? It seems like in general, it would just be lower distance and greater reliance on nodes near you, with the trade off being smaller equipment.
https://themodernham.com/ip-over-ham-radio-via-new-packet-radio/
Its biggest + in my book is that you don’t have to be a ham to make it work. There are better systems if you want more reliable communications. But its a fun side hobby and, in the event of a power outage, a decent little communicator. Although from personal experience, most of the devices piggy back of your existing cell phones and bluetooth. So ironically as long as the cell towers aren’t blown to hell, your still fine either way.
You don’t need cell towers. Your phone is just used as an input device for the radio.
There may be some miscommunication. I ment that in order to use a majority of the meshtastic devices, they require the android or ios app + bluetooth. Not all, but a vast majority. And most of those will have access to a cell phone tower that will likely not go down, even in the event your neighborhood power goes off. At least where I am at. The devices have often been alluded to a disaster proof communications device. And an alternative to instant messaging. Its not as reliable as some other tech that is out there, but its a fun hobby!
Hope that makes more sense.
Gotcha. I read your post wrong.
The phones are one reason I don’t think Meshtastic is good for emergency communications. My main Meshtastic devices run off a battery pack that can run them for 2-3 weeks, but I’d also have to keep a phone charged throughout the disaster to use them.
What is the range of a device like this? Is there any chance of using a mesh system like that if you’re not in a city? I’m about 30 miles away from a few towns, so there’s little chance for repeaters to be nearby.
Theoretically you can get 50 ish miles or more with line of sight. In practice, you can get around 10 ish with repeaters. With around 30 devices, our city has effective coverage.
You also have options to use MQTT if you want to make sure a message gets through. But that requires an internet connection.
What about without line of sight? If I get one of these is it going to work while it’s sitting on my desk, or am I going to have to mount some antennas on the roof to actually make it usable? The maps only show like three other people in my city with one, so I’m not sure how useful this will actually be for me.
Honestly, its a fun side project, but without enough nodes its more of a hobby. If you want to make it usable, its probably better to use internet or higher power devices (like ham). Or buy a metric ton of these and throw them up high.
As long as you have a node in sight, it should be good for at least some communication. My little window node gets 20+ nodes.
Additionally is there a way to search what’s already out there without a device?
You can, there are websites that show some of the devices. But from what I’ve found, it’s only showing around 1/4 of the real devices in the area. Or at least where I am at.
I’m on the phone so I’m not sure off the top of my head, but I think someone already linked a couple above.
Thanks. I eventually saw that comment and I am just a bit out of range of one listed.
What is the typical power requirement on these devices? Can it be used to set up IoT sensor nodes in the wild where they work off solar, or do they need periodic tuning/care?
I’m running about 1w per device ATM.
So yeah it sips energy. There’s a lot of nodes in the mountains that are solar powered. They work.
That’s a great idea. The area I live in is pretty mountainous so putting nodes on ridges provide pretty good coverage
Very low and yes. They work great for IoT, as long as it’s not mission critical stuff as messages can get dropped or arrive out of order sometimes. But for something like monitoring a remote sensor station that’s within the Lora range, without needing a cellular plan, yes.
I got mine recently in a dxent aized city and while there are plenty of nodes popping up on the map, the local channel is pretty quiet. Is that normal?
Yeah, we had to make a weather app on longfast to fill the void. Tech people tend to not talk all that much. We are the strange ones ;)
Most of the weather app was made from a reddit post back a year or so ago. I have no idea where though. App is a python script here if your interested.
The maps do not show any devices in the country where I live, but due to the low cost and practical use, I’d love to set some up.
If i am usually within 6km of my home, in a city. I wonder if 1 node will be enough coverage.
Also, how can you tell that there are more nodes than reported on those sites?
The phone app gives the location of nodes want you to know. And most don’t care. For example, in my city there is currently 24 online nodes my window node has interacted with. And 174 in total nodes it’s contacted today.
It can be spotty during certain times of the day.