I plan to purchase a ready-to-go (plug&play) LoRaWAN gateway for a research purposes. For testing purposes, the gateway will handle 5-10 end-node and will be placed outdoor. Any suggestion?
To help you you need to be more explicit wrt requirements!
Outdoor?..Antenna only with GW sheltered or protected? Or need IPxx rated? If IP rated what environment…snow field, desert, jungle! on a pole, under a shed awning?
How powered?
How connected (for Internet backhaul…local ENet? Cellular? Satellite? WifFi?
PoE support?
Operating environment (Temp/Humidity?)
If no backhaul needed is it with embedded NS? AppS?, Local network with local/on premise NS/AppS?
So far is a research project to check different smart waste collection devices based on LoRa, so the gateway in this first stage will be indoor just to get information from the devices and test which one works better. But in a real deployment, I guess i desire:
Outdoor
Should be IPxx rated. I’m in the south of Spain, so no snow, desert or jungle. No extreme cold, but high humidity (near the sea) and hot in summer (38-40º)
About the power and connection, I guess will be powered to the electrical system of the building (no additional battery) and connected through ethernet.
Will be deployed in a council building (not in the mountain or in the street)
Ok then for your early tests I would agree with @pe1mew that the RAK Pilot a good choice, or a self build around similar elements - RPi 2, 3 or 0W variants with RAK 831 + RAK or alternate interface board…(search the forum for the various build option other TTNer’s have used) & don’t use DuPont jumper wires! Setting up image should take 5-15mins after down load…I have >dozen such deployed to TTN. Another good choice…just assemble antennas, connect to network, config over web interface and register to TTN …have that down to < 4 mins now! is the Laird RG186. (More robust to power outages & restarts than the RPi based systems as no uSD card storage) Again have a few handfuls of these deployed. The iMST LiteGW is a good alternate to Pilot, also. Even with VAT & shipping all should come in <€300.
If mounting on council building try to go for (cheaper and easier to access) indoor units like them and run a short (1-3, <<5m unless using ultra low loss) cable to out door high mounted antenna…height most important as an extra 10-20m height can more than offset an extra db or 2 of cable loss!). You can then always mount the small indoor GWs in an external rated housing for long term use
Lorix a good choice & one of the cheaper outdoor IP rated units & easy to mount directly at height on a mast/pole or external location…again search this forum for good deployment examples
I have a LORIX One for professional use and I can recommend you.
Edit :
It’s a good choice for outdoor / IP65 gateways. The OS system is Yocto Linux, it’s not closed system. And you find a lot informations in the website about tech specifications and details documentation.
The cons is there isn’t GPS inside the gateway.
Yes, the price is a bit more expensive (~500 EUR) than GW with Raspberry PI (RAK or other).
But if you want a support, advice and update for professional, it’s a good deal.
This is just the RAK pilot preconfigured to run easily with the backend as part of the IoT-In-A-Box offering, if not using that packaged solution you might as well get the standard Pilot. Can also buy on the IoTinAbox webshop…for big premium! https://www.iotinabox.com/hardware/
As @BoRRoZ says essentially mentioned earlier… by @pe1mew
