kerlink LoRa gateway
Until the reality of a LoRa public network in France, to test this technology the best way is to have its own LoRaWAN getway. This is a thing done with the kerlink gateway.
This post will detail the first steps to install it and start to communicate.
Microchip RN2483 Lora
The microchip device is in most of the case delivered with a 0.9.5 a version 1 seems to be available even if not downloadable from microchip product webpage.
This link contains a version 1.0 and a java tool that helps to configure the chip with a graphical interface. It is really usefull.
Main problem I found with the tool: it is not possible on a MAC to open the firmware file to load. Other functions are accessible. On W7 it is possible to flash the device :
Actually on May 1st 2016 the current firmware version is 1.0.1 you can get it following this link. This version is the one validated for network operators like Objenious.
Microchip RN2483 Lora
After spending some time reading and writing about LoRa it was a good time to make some real test of this technology.
As actually there is no network for LoRa, as much as I know, in my town, I expected to start a simple LoRa test (point to point and not as part of a WAN). I just bought some RN2483 LoRa module from Microchip online and also get some from Avnet (thank you Guillaume)
The module is easy to solder on a prototype board and get its command over a serial port. I choose to make two modules :
LoRa is a dedicated network for Internet Of Things and Machine2Machine communications. It is actually the main competitor against SigFox.
As LoRa is actually rising in France with different announce from 2 of the main cellular operators deploying the network, it is a good time to have a post on what it is, how it works and what differs compared with SigFox.
This year M2M and IoT are two of the most heard keywords in our technological domain. One of these is fresh new, I mean a couple of year old, when the other one is pretty much older. M2M, standing for Machine to Machine is a capability for two machines (or more) to discuss together and take actions. Like a temperature sensor allowing your boiler to decide when to start or stop. In the industry where automatism are in place since many year, M2M is something in place, running, not new. IoT, standing for Internet of Things is part of the M2M technology but actually raising. In IoT the main word is Internet and it stands for the capability of an object to talk over Internet on its own. Why only now ? mostly because now it starts to be possible.