Thanks for sharing, i just did a quick look for the node, and it looks decent.
some people said it needs some soldering, could you confirm this information? and what about the range?
for the last couple days i was reading about different LoRa node, to be honest with you, they are almost all the same, but what was interesting is that the RFM95 isn’t that good, TTGO is better, i know all of them are based on SX127X (new with SX126x) and whisper uses RFM95 so based what i have readh TTGO may consider better,
the thing is, i’m kinda confused about the huge number of lora board in the market.
adafruit with the feather M0 and feather 32u4
TTGO with lora32 oled and T-beam
laird with the RMxxx, it require it own language (hope @kersing can confirm this information since he worked on this one)
microchip lora module (ATSAM…) you can find it in Penguino Feather
B-L072Z-LRWAN1, STM32 , uses murata chip,
i think this what i have found and maybe more, and almost all of them are the same. i mean in LoRa specification not the MCU. but i’m not really sure about that, because some company promise a range of 15KM like laird but i have no clue if it’s true or not, and other promise a TX power = 20 dBm which after tesing it, it was barley reach 10 dBm like ttgo and heltec,
i watched a lot of Andreas Spiess videos and it was helpful, and one in his videos said hopeRF is better then TTGO, and TTGO is better then heltec, and the new heltec is quite good now after use the new lora chip, SX126x but documentations and libraries are not quite enough to chose that chip now for someone like me to start with, so i’m kinda confused about which one is the better, i mean i term of quality and numbers (board specification being true) and do they all support LoRaWAN (am i gonna face problem to use class A or class B or C) or am i not be able to use LMIC library (the only one i know it supports LoRaWAN).
Since most all current LoRa nodes are based on the Semtech SX127X device, the range\distance performance should be very similar.
There is often a lot of heresay and annectdotal ‘advice’ that one board performs better than another, but to get to the truth you need to do direct signal performance comparisions in a controlled environment.
that’s a way to know the performance of each board, and other way is to hear from people their opinion and what they like and didn’t like about the board they have used, this is why i didn’t want to name the topic “what is the best board” i just wanted to know other peoples experience and story about LoRa board, their favorite board and what they are using now and from that i can build a good idea about LoRa boards, i have read many conversation in many forums and watched many videos and what i have said in the previous comment was the result of those informations, more questions hhhh.
This module uses SmartBasic and has a certified LoRaWAN stack build in. SmartBasic limits usability in some ways but the build in LoRaWAN stack allows you to avoid all the pitfalls that come with the use of lmic, a big plus in my book especially if you are not a hardcore embedded developer.
It also allows for really fast prototyping and very low power usage designs. The module has a uFl connector to connect an antenna and has excellent range with decent antennas.
I prefer this module over esp32 based options because it has very low power use in sleep mode without the hassle of having to adapt a LoRaWAN stack to keep session variables save in non volatile memory.
i get it, but promising the customer with 0.4uA and i get that 0.4uA in real practice or even close to it, won’t be a big problem as long as the battery life will be the limit, but as other board (like TTGO) saying 0.2uA in deep sleep while some people hardly get close value to that, (i’m sorry, i forget the exact value), i think it’s a problem, i hope i’m wrong in this one because i do like TTGO board but i don’t trust their specification, and you can’t just buy and test all boards to chose the right one,(wish i can do that XD ).
Ah, using the power management to power everything off.
Having to restart from afresh everytime wastes a lot of battery power, especially with an ESP32.
A setup which allows the processor to resume from the point at which it was put to sleep will normally be more power efficient since this avoids all the startup and initialisation processes.
I have been using Heltec boards (V2) for several tests; 1 channel LoRa gateway, LoRa FM band inspector (in combination with a $3FM receiver).
Even without extra antenna or other options, managed to access a gateway at some 3 km distance.
Pricewise it was appealing for me, then. Noticed prices tripled since then…
i watched Andreas Spiess video comparing TTGO with Heltec, and the results wasn’t quite good for heltec, poor antenna. but in general it’s a decent board.
did you have a look at the new heltec board “cube cell”, it uses SX1262.
I have a question. does all end node support any LoRaWAN class (A, B or C), i didn’t thought about this before because i thought and still think it’s a software side. i mean i know what are they but some Boards specification keep saying (support class A, class A stack included etc) what do they mean??