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.
The problem is that more than half of reported difficulties trace back to a user mistake…
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.
0.4 uA for the dev board, that’s impressive, and with that kind if specification, i think i see why you like it.
Well, in a way it is impressive.
But very low sleep currents are more of a marketing issue.
If the sleep current was a ‘massive’ say 25 time greater than that at 10uA, then a set of AAAs would still have a battery life of 11 years.
So the reality is that very low sleep currents may not make a lot of difference in practice.
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 ).
Which TTGO board claims a deepsleep of 0.2uA or less ?
T-Beam and lora32 oled
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.
but, does it really reach the 0.2uA??
No idea. Don’t have one of those boards.
may i ask you the board you are using?
I build my own bares bones boards, ATmega328 or ATmega1284 mostly.
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…
nice, and what about the lora chip, which one did you use?
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??
Without any context and figures that is a nonsense statement.
That is a general statement which does not hold.
Be specific.
What MCU, board models and which versions?
What antenna, LoRaWAN, WiFi, both?
Also the LoRaWAN antenna’s for these boards are all external, connected either via UFL/IPEX or SMA connector.