I am curious about how the mesh topology based on Launchpad is superior to typical star topology LoRa. It looks like each Launchpad is $30 (multiple per light?

I am curious about how the mesh topology based on Launchpad is superior to typical star topology LoRa. It looks like each Launchpad is $30 (multiple per light?) and Pi Zero W is $10, yet an ESP32 development board with LoRa is about $10. Given that street lights have a constant power source the communication challenges seem like they would be easy compared to when such devices are economizing every milliwatt hour. They could be set to always receive, and send small packets to a nearby peers to be relayed in very short windows.