Advantages of LoRA

• Long Range with clear line of sight

• Consumes very little power

• Utilizes the ISM bands 868 Mhz in Singapore which makes it free at the moment

Disadvantage of LoRA

• Gateways are tied to the same server / gateway. This means that we recommend only one LoRA network to be operating in the same frequency to avoid collision

• Intended for low data payload and low frequency. This means that it is not designed for continuous monitoring (1 second sampling rates)

A great resource to further your research or understanding is the official LoRA Alliance resource hub: https://lora-alliance.org/resource-hub. 

LoRa (Long Range) is a patented digital wireless data communications technology that modulates data into EM waves using "Chirp Spread Spectrum". This allows transmission of as far as 15km with clear line-of-sight and a typical range in urban area is 2 - 3 km. The typical network topology follows a Star network and operates at a data rate of 250bps to 50kbps.

*In our product portfolio, when we refer to LoRA Terminals and routers, these are devices based on the LoRA Technology to take advantage of the transport or physical layer to transmit data.

LoRAWAN (Long Range wide area network) is a set of specifications intended for wireless battery operated devices in a regional, national or global network. It is important to note that LoRA and LoRAWAN are not the same and not compatible directly. LoRAWAN includes additional stacks that is built on the base LoRA physical layer to accommodate the requirements of a WAN such as high network capacity, network security. The regional parameters are currently:

• 920-925Mhz / AS923 <- Singapore. It is also common to see 915 Mhz by other vendors

• 433.05-434.79Mhz / EU433

• 866-869Mhz / EU863-870

Below is a table of comparison between competing technologies and LoRAWAN.

Typical Architecture of LoRA Terminals and Gateways

LoRA is a star network. This means that we will need to use one of the LoRA Gateways to connect as the central node to facilitate the movement of the data. In the diagram, we use F8L10Ts to connect via Serial the the field devices. We then transport the payload over the LoRA network over a long range to reach another LoRA Device or Gateway to outputs them via Cellular to reach a standard TCP/IP or LAN based application residing on a server.