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Comment by janjongboom | Hacker News Reader

The cheapest 8-channel LoRaWAN gateways can be found for 69$ (https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/docs/gateways/thethingsindo...). Prices have come down significantly. Outdoor gateways with IP67 rating can be found for about 400$.

Alternatively two LoRa radios can just talk point-to-point between each other.

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I thought the prices was licensing related

"Alternatively two LoRa radios can just talk point-to-point between each other"

Is this a new development? Last I checked this wasn't possible.

Can I connect up little $6 dollar ESP LoRa modules to talk to each other?

The comments here suggest it's not possible: https://www.cnx-software.com/2017/10/13/this-ttgo-board-comb...

Oh yes they can connect p2p. The ESP32/ESP8266 modules you see at 6$ don't have a lora module though, that's extra (but still a good combo) more like ~15$.

I bought two with old screens and don't have any base stations. I beleive they can be connected in mesh with more too (not sure how many channels are needed)!

When you say they "don't have a lora module" but they still work in p2p, what does that mean? Parts are done in software that normally would be in a hardware module?

My bad, I mean the ESP32/ESP8266 modules on their own don't have any LORA capabilities (The ESP32 has both Bluetooth BLE and Wifi, ESP8266 has just wifi).

However LORA itself does work over P2P, and a common module is the ESP32 + LORA + OLED screen, which I have used and tested without any gateways.

Also I think separate from LORA altogether - There's something called ESPNOW which lets the ESP's mesh network, but that's not related to LORA and I haven't ever played with it.

I bought some LORA module for 3eur (AI Tinker RA-01).

Connecting two Lora modules ad hoc has always been possible. The catch is you won't be part of the LoraWan network.

I would say boycott LoraWan.

You are only feeding Semtech, the Microsoft of Lora, which has the patents on basic information encoding/decoding.

The only gateways you can have which listen on multiple channels are damn expensive.

Gateways are about 200$ fully assembled, it's not that expensive. (Source: I built a gateway with 8 channels)

What's the benefit of being part of this network?

Isn't LoRa basically just intended to be used one-way/upstream, i.e "node --> gateway --> end-device"? What am I missing?

You can use other gateways in the same network to communicate in both directions with your device. There are also proposals to allow roaming for devices to communicate over multiple networks.

See ttnmapper.org for the level of coverage and https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/docs/network/architecture.h... for an explanation of "downlink" return messages

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