LoraWan Gateway and Node Red

1

I am new to LoraWan.
After watching some of the Pycom Videos at Core, I notice one describing use of LoPy4 as a nano gateway.
The Node-Red example used a couple of LoPy blocks for receiving and sending data to and from TTN.

I am wanting to know whether I could use half of the functionality. ie. The Nano gateway handles traffic from remote field devices but instead of forwarding to TTN, I can change the packet header and send them via HTTP to my own Thingsboard server?

I suppose I am asking if the nano gateway will be able to used to allow nodes to join the network and authenticate then and the data can be extracted in Node-Red using a function block?

After Thought: Have I misunderstood the value of TTN? Is the better approach to use the Standard TTN server and then have the data forwarded to my Thingsboard server, which then becomes the user interface - providing dashboards and web-based controls etc?

Finally, Is there a step up from the Nano Gateway to provide more channels?

Thanks

1 Like
2

Hi David,

You asked a lot of questions here so forgive me if I miss one. You can edit the Nano Gateway code to forward the received packets anywhere you like really. We don’t have a guide to do that, but we do have a guide on how to forward your data on from TTN: https://core-electronics.com.au/tutorials/the-things-network-ttn/

Don’t underestimate the value of what TTN does for you. All the backend work of encoding and authenticating is done via there platform and it is free to use. You can use “integrations” to pass along all your data to any MQTT server or service that you like really.

The Lopy4 nano gateway example is more of a proof of concept than a functioning gateway. If you want full 8-channel functionality you need to get a proper gateway. For enthusiasts, we made the uGateway. It’s a low-cost gateway that is full featured and benefits the LoRaWAN community at large. For professional applications, there is the Laird Sentrius gateway.

You can integrate with Node-Red via whatever method you choose.

I hope I answered them all. Good luck with your project!