4 ms·
To me, this is not extremely long range, in comparison to a Pactor modem over HF, which can reach over 1000 miles, as I've seen on a sailboat passage from Hawai
by lscotte 7y ago
To me, this is not extremely long range, in comparison to a Pactor modem over HF, which can reach over 1000 miles, as I've seen on a sailboat passage from Hawaii to California. It requires more power - 150 watts or so, if I recall correctly, and bit rates can be low as a few bits (not bytes) per second with poor propagation. Being able to stay in contact with family in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is pretty awesome.
- ivanhoe 7y agoIt's extremely long range for low-power devices. LORA is mostly used for sensors, trackers and other miniature, usually battery/solar powered devices that need to run for months or sometimes years unmaintained.
- tlrobinson 7y agoAlso, very small antennas, especially compared to typical HF antennas (sometimes the entire 60+ ft backstay on a sailboat, for example)
- windexh8er 7y agoFor those interested in playing around PyCom (MicroPython devices) are great. As an example the LoPy 4 supports LoRa, Sigfox, Bluetooth and Wifi. https://pycom.io/product/lopy4/ https://pycom.io/product/lopy4/
- therein 7y agoI got one of those but only having one. I can think of some uses for it if I had two but with only one, couldn't do much with it.
- windexh8er 7y agoKeep in mind that's not exactly true. There are gateways that can be used such as "The Things Network": https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/ https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/
- IshKebab 7y agoRight but this is for edge devices that can be battery powered. You can't use 150 W.
- vvanders 7y agoNot just battery powered but battery powered for months+. The way that receive windows are structured into the protocol it allows the device to go into deep sleep between windows.
- ausjke 7y agoI believe the selling point is that it can run on battery for years, 10+ years sometimes limited by battery's shelf life time.
- squarefoot 7y ago"Not just battery powered but battery powered for months+" True, and solar powered too, that is, put one on a pole and forget about it; not even the cost of changing the battery, just wiping the solar cell now and then if wind and rain don't do their job. The rechargeable one can be a supercap or an oversized cell so that when time will inevitably degrade its chemistry to an unusable state, the sensor will probably have ended its planned use life already.
- windexh8er 7y agoYou also have to have appropriate licensure at that power output.
- RobLach 7y ago150 watts is 5000x more power than what LORA requires, which is why this is so impressive.