AT module and RN2483: not working with my Linux box

Awesome stuff @Gordon! I will test it with TheThingsNetwork and see if I can extend a bit!

About "some instructions for setting up your own LoRaWAN", there's plenty on the TTN website, here's just one I wrote, but there are many others available on the TTN website/forum :)

Great, thanks! I had seen that already actually, I didn't realise it was you :)

I was actually wondering about how to set up a LoRaWAN that wasn't part of the Things Network.

Someone I'm doing some work for wants to deploy a bunch of sensors somewhere remote, with no internet connection. The idea would be to just set up a Pi exactly like you've done, but have some software on it that got called when each packet was received (rather than requiring a connection upstream).

In that case, check out this project: https://github.com/brocaar/loraserver
The guy behind it works very closely with TTN anyway, so it should be trivial to swap the two if you ever want to.

Thanks - I'll take a look!

Just IMO, but looking at the Arduino library, it's not arranged very well.

It seems that you can only ever receive a message right after you have transmitted, so the whole onMessage callback is downright confusing. People might just hook onto that callback and assume it'll be called when a message is ready.

Or, worse, they might call the poll function every few milliseconds, which as I understand it will basically flood the network with 0 length transmissions.

It might be better to just add the data received callback to the send function and explicitly explain what's going on.

Yes, that behavior is the LoRaWAN part. Class A devices (the only ones really available on the market right now) behave that way: they open receive windows after sending, and they won't receive at any other point. Class C devices are always listening and could receive downlink with an onMessage callback, but there's afaik none available right now, and no network support either.

I tried to play with the new RN2483 module. I started by calling the lora.getStatus() in order to verify everything is OK with the communication between the module and the Pico.
Unfortunately I got an unexpected status:

{
  "EUI": "0004A30B00AAAAAA",
  "VDD": 0.004,
  "appEUI": "0004A30B00AAAAAA",
  "devEUI": "0004A30B00AAAAAA",
  "band": "0004A30B00AAAAAA",
  "dataRate": "0004A30B00AAAAAA",
  "rxDelay1": "0004A30B00AAAAAA",
  "rxDelay2": "0004A30B00AAAAAA"
 }

Is the Promise sequence correctly implemented?

You're probably using Espruino 1v87? As I said above, you need one of the latest builds as 1v87 had a bug in promises: http://www.espruino.com/binaries/git/commits/master/

I was quite sure the latest release was 1v88 and I did not even had a look at the revision on my Pico because It knew it was running the latest release ...

I just had a try with the latest binary (1v87.840) and it works well :-). Tomorrow I will certainly have some time to add functions to connect to TTN.

The module could now be used to connect to TTN, see PR here I just tested it and It works like a charm. You just have to configure the keys then send anything you want:

lora.LoRaWAN(devAddr,nwkSKey,appSKey,function(x){console.log(x);});
lora.loraTX("Hello");

Awesome - thanks! Looks like I need to get a LoRaWAN base station set up then!

The tutorial made by @gnz on how to build a LoRaWAN-TTN gateway in a week-end could be helpful.
Talking about the RN2483 JS module, I will try to add some additional features such as the ADR (adaptative data rate) configuration, which seems to be supported with TTN. For generic LoRaWAN infrastructures, any input on what is actually needed within the module is welcome.

just read this thread, really cool could you provide me a hint how to connect a espruino pico to a RN2483 ? sorry for this newbee question.

There's some info here: https://github.com/espruino/EspruinoDocs/blob/master/devices/RN2483.md (it'll be public on the main website at some point)

Basically @DrAzzy has made some neat little breakout boards that have the pins in an order that allows you to just put the board right next door to a Pico on some breadboard.

Even so, you don't need much though - just RX, TX, GND and 3.3v

A guy from TTN (Fokke Zandbergen) asked me to write a quickstart guide on using Espruino+RN2483 with The Things Network. As I already played a little with that, I was able to start writting some line on it.
It is currently being edited and will not be finalized before a few weeks.
In the meantime, if anyone would like to contribute (Add some knowledge, correct the language, or even layout), please do not hesitate.
it is currently hosted on my git. When good enough, it will be transferred on the TTN repository.

Looks good - I'm interested in LoRaWAN but wasn't sure how to start - this is a great intro.

One question on mind as I read it. How do you know if you are in range of gateway? Can you ping them or something or do you just send and not assume message sent unless you get OK return? I guess you could send two messages, the first a test/ping, and if get OK then send real data?

How do you know if you are in range of gateway? Can you ping them or something

Actually I don't have a deep knowledge about LoRaWAN, I don't think there is any way of "pingping" a gateway.. Maybe @gnz may have the answer?
Anyway I will ask on TTN Slack channel

Looks really good... I'm interested to see the receiving data part as well :)

Just noticed:

• 'HERE' need prefixing with http:// by the look of it?
  
• Also, you could link to the module page on espruino.com? rather than directly to GitHub now.
  
• If you text-search for '###' there's a heading that I thing doesn't have a newline before it so it's getting copied verbatim into the HTML.
  
  
  

Would you be willing to copy the bottom part onto a espruino.com TheThingsNetwork page as well? It could be really handy, or I guess at the least I could link to yours from RN2483

'HERE' need prefixing with http:// by the look of it?

Done

Also, you could link to the module page on espruino.com? rather than directly to GitHub now.
Done
If you text-search for '###' there's a heading that I thing doesn't have a newline before it so it's getting copied verbatim into the HTML.

I suppose it's OK now.

Would you be willing to copy the bottom part onto a espruino.com TheThingsNetwork page as well? It could be really handy, or I guess at the least I could link to yours from RN2483

Is there any The Things Network related page on Espruino.com?

@Ollie At MAC level, there is a command that will help you check if you are linked to a gateway, called "LinkCheck ":
This command sets the time interval for the link check prococess to be triggered periodically (Microchip RN2483 Command Reference user's Guide, sectioin 2.4.8.12)
I will try this command, and add it to the JS module if that makes sense.

Great, thanks for confirming that.

Looking at the module and the peer to peer example in @Gordon's link above, I also wondered how communications are secured. It looks like any module could listen and receive the transmission? And re the range - could we expect one of these RN2483 modules to a have the 10km range mentioned on ThingsNetwork or is there signal amplification on their modules?

Is there any The Things Network related page on Espruino.com?

No, just the RN2483 page - You could add one though - EspruinoDocs/tutorials/The Things Network.md? Otherwise I could do it and use what you've done from the existing page if you're happy with that?

Doesn't matter how. If you consider the content of this guide could be helpful for the Espruino community, feel free to extract what you want from it. Or I can make a PR when finished.
Anyway, I would wait until it is completed. Otherwise it will be complicated to update both sources.

Let me know if there's anything I could do to be useful for this documentation. I obviously have an interest in these. BTW - assembled boards are now for sale in my tindie shop. https://www.tindie.com/products/DrAzzy/lorawan-rn2483rn2903-breakout-board-assembled/

@DrAzzy Thx for the link! I was looking for such an assembled board. They seem to be rare up to now... The link is now part of the guide.
The current module is kind of minimalist. Based on people inputs, it should:

• implement OTAA authentication
  
• provide a bandwidth-efficient way of detecting a valid link (mac set linkchk ?!?)
  
• provide a convenient method to poll the RX mailbox
  
  

If you have already done such things, it could be very helpful to share your work.
Anyway I will probably do it by myself too, just for my curiosity ;-)

Thanks a lot for the linking!
Yeah - I'd gotten a lot of requests for it, and decided to just bite the bullet and start offering them. Probably should have sooner.

I'm afraid I haven't added anything like that to the module - I don't really have any projects that call for LoRa communication, so I've played with these boards embarrassingly little myself.

Is there anywhere I should be putting links back to from my RN2483 related pages?