Reviving the TTN Kickstarter Gateway in 2026
Ever since the TTN Kickstarter project delivered its gateway, I have been running one or more of them. They serve me well overall, though not without their quirks. In the early days, finding stable firmware was a real challenge, but that has long been sorted out. Digging through my records, I found that I bought a PICkit4 back in March 2018 specifically to be able to flash these devices.
As I recalled, the software was open source, inviting the community to build on it and make the Kickstarter gateway a more versatile device. With that in mind, I forked the codebase and was ready to start adding features. It soon became clear, however, that TTI was far more reserved about accepting merge requests, and development stalled almost completely, the occasional update trickled through, but that was about it.
I still have a soft spot for this gateway. It is a true embedded device, one of a kind. The downside is the significant vendor lock-in on Microchip; hardware manufacturer decisions heavily constrain the software, making changes genuinely difficult. Even with my current knowledge, it is no easy task.
Anno 2026: New Tools, New Possibilities
The KSG project never left the table, it just gathered some dust. Over the past months I have managed to revive a number of dormant projects with the help of LLMs like Claude, so the time felt right to give it a try on the Kickstarter gateway software as well.
After a few hours of prompting, I had a build chain set up, compilation verified, and an initial investigation of the codebase underway. That gave me enough confidence to start making some targeted changes.
Fix 1: WiFi AP Always On The first issue I tackled was the WiFi access point being permanently active, even when a wired Ethernet connection is present. The 2.4 GHz band in my shack is already crowded, so silencing any unnecessary interferer is very welcome. Claude’s analysis revealed code that was never called and incomplete logic governing the WiFi client, AP, and Ethernet connection. A solution was proposed, I implemented it, compilation succeeded, and, since my PICkit4 turned out to be dead after years of sitting unused, I tested via SD card. It worked!
Fix 2: Expired Certificates Feeling confident, I turned my attention to certificates embedded in the code. Claude flagged one that had already expired and another due to expire shortly. Since I intend to keep using this gateway, that had to be resolved. A plan was drawn up, verified by me, and executed. And it worked!
If you want to test this on your own KSG, you can download the SD card firmware here: gateway/releases/1.1.3 at upd-only · pe1mew/gateway · GitHub
A Note on LLMs There is plenty to say about using LLMs, both for and against. This thread is not the place for that debate, though. Please keep discussions about the ethics and philosophy of LLMs and coding elsewhere, in a constructive spirit and with an open mind to different perspectives.
For me, this has been an inspiring experience: breathing new life into an old project that still matters to me. I hope it inspires you too.
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