3 ms·

Wasn't it designed for sending sensor data from oil wells spread out over vast swaths of land or something? I've always though of it as shortwave/vhf for packet

• intpx 5y ago
  Maybe i'm thinking zigbee?
  • gh02t 5y ago
    Zigbee has always (or at least, for a long time) targeted a mixture of consumer and industrial applications and is focused on relatively short range mesh networks. It does have a lot of consumer uses now, it's one of the big protocols used for home automation. Not sure of the exact history of LoRa, but widely distributed oil well sensors would definitely fit the intended use of LoRa. Agriculture is another good use case. Low power sensors infrequently reporting (mostly one-way) small amounts of data back to a base station over really long distances is what it was originally designed for, though people have done other stuff with it. Zigbee is all about the meshing AFAIU.
    • thedougd 5y ago
      Zigbee has a serial bus mode that's identical to RS-485 in practice. There were/are so many industrial applications of RS-485 that they could instantly convert to wireless mesh with a zigbee daughter board or chipset. 'Pro' versions had ~1.5 mile range between nodes.
• zoom6628 5y ago
  Started out being used for satellite communication between satellites. It's point to point nature and multiple frequency legs itself to sensor networks over extended distance or in dense areas like cities.