There are many commercial and development-oriented products, projects, and development options for a wide variety of applications. Commercially available, OTB (out-of-the-box) gateway solutions can be had from sources such as MultiTech, LinkLabs, and thethingsnetwork.org.
Development kits are available for gateway devices, too. Examples include the LoRa Evaluation Kit from Microchip and the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3 and Overo Conduit kits from Gumstix. These kits provide developer-level access to the hardware and firmware found in LoRa gateways.
If the developer kits available on the market don’t meet with your requirements or expectations, there are alternatives like Gumstix’s Geppetto D2O. This online design-to-order system features a simple drag-and-drop module library of processors, sensors, networks, and more that can be designed into a single-board solution and shipped within 15 days of order. Geppetto can incorporate a connector module for the RisingHF RHF0M301 gateway and concentrator module into any board configuration.
When it comes to sensor nodes, the challenge becomes greater. Myriad shields and dongles exist for various sensors and inputs, but few dedicated products. Finding a product that matches the specifications of your application is going to be difficult. Therefore you may find yourself doing one of the following
Assembling an ad-hoc node prototype from MCU boards, LoRa transceiver shields, and sensor devices.
Investing engineering hours and resources designing and manufacturing prototypes.
Ordering custom hardware from third parties, such as Geppetto from Gumstix (in addition to the RHF gateway module, Gepetto has a transceiver module incorporating Microchip’s RN2483 or RN2903).
In a nutshell, LoRa provides secure, bidirectional, low-power, long-range communication through both free and paid network services. Its wireless signals can reach across great distances, delivering tiny packets of data to and from multiple low-power node devices.
