LoRa seems like a super power for hobbyists. I naively tried to use WiFi to network some MCUs around my place (in different buildings, some close to the mesh but a couple fairly far) and it went terribly. I wound up writing a lot of code to keep the connections alive, but after some data logging I discovered the two furthest boards were offline around 60% of the time. That’s in range to seem pretty broken to me.

After a bit of research I discovered LoRa and I’m in the process of swapping out the WiFi network. While the bandwidth isn’t great, I really don’t need it. So far I’ve found a couple test boards can communicate virtually uninterrupted over the same distance that the WiFi boards typically fail. They also consume way less energy doing so! The code footprint is smaller, the boards will survive on battery power much longer, and expanding the network will be way less hassle.

If you need high bandwidth then I guess it’s not a viable solution, but if you don’t it seems incredible to me. I’m still in mild disbelief that something so cool and useful is so cheap and easy to use.