Nostr Web Client

You guys are aware that LoRa is a closed source, patented, and name trademarked protocol right? TMK Semtech is the only company that is licensed to produce the hardware radios. Beyond that it's dog shit slow. IIRC Best I could do was 2kb/s half-duplex using custom headers and bit banging the data line instead of using the SPI interface from under 1000ft distance with proper antennas from the RF team on campus. It was the maximum the radio could handle, if you don't believe me, Semtech published a software tool that tells you exactly what the maximum throughput is as a function of the radio configuration. Its poopy. We have better technology that can operate in the same frequency ranges, why are we stuck on LoRa???

nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzqwlsccluhy6xxsr6l9a9uhhxf75g85g8a709tprjcn4e42h053vaqyt8wumn8ghj7mn0wd68yetvd96x2uewdaexwtcprdmhxue69uhhg6r9vehhyetnwshxummnw3erztnrdakj7qpqqqqvv99fcvavd6t84wa8dczw09yrzlqnruzyattdfcpe3rarh07skd7fn0

Constant 1y ago

1: Semtech owns it; there are other chip producers with licenses from Semtech

2: the phy has been reverse engineered and opensourced

3: LoRaWAN is open btw

4: everytime it comes up i have communicated using LoRa is not a good idea; it was designed for a different purpose all together (i.e. large sensor networks for which it is great).

I think the reason people keep going for LoRa is because there are a lot of cheap and easy resources available🤷‍♂️

(Was an IoT consultant, mostly LoRa, for 4,5 years, doing designing and producing sensors all the way to designing and deploying large scale networks)

Reply to this note

Please Login to reply.

Discussion

ChipTuner 1y ago

> Semtech owns it;

I think they only own the hardware design, I think another company holds the patent?

> the phy has been reverse engineered and opensourced

The protocol is patented so I wonder if it infringes and could be sued? I ran into some issues reverse engineering propriety firmware in a past gig.

> everytime it comes up i have communicated using LoRa is not a good idea; it was designed for a different purpose all together

That's the entire point of this note!!!

I would agree, Semtech radios are everywhere, cheap, and easy to talk to, although with the rf95 I ran into some issues where a couple register numbers were swapped but the rf69 docs were correct. I sent them an email but never heard back lol

Constant 1y ago

Semtech acquired the company of the three guys that created the phy, they run the entire thing.

They were hard enough to get a hold off

eventhough we had close ties and direct lines of contact hehe.