I have to admit that I still don't quite see the utility of LoRa and LoRaWAN for a handheld device like this.
In particular:
- LoRa is a proprietary specification (unlike 802.11, Bluetooth, etc.) and is thus relatively uncommon, since only a small number of vendors (one?) can produce compatible chips.
- LoRa's datarates are extremely small, potentially slower than even those of dial-up telephone modems. In order to achieve its maximum link budget (about 170 dB), it has to reduce its data throughput to about 300 bits per second. Even using something as minimalistic as IRC at those speeds will be frustrating by modern standards, and loading multimegabyte webpages will be virtually out of the question.
- LoRa's theoretical link budget - how much the signal can attenuate between devices and still be heard - is high, but it's not magic. I don't have any reason to expect that two devices in different parts of the same city, for example, will stand much of a chance of hearing each other. This is still UHF, nearly microwave, and it isn't going to propagate through large structures very well. The chirp spread-spectrum modulation scheme that LoRa uses does have some resistance to multipath fading, so it's possible that highly dispersed reflections off of buildings are more useful than I'm expecting them to be, but I'm still very skeptical of this.
- Mesh networks are a possibility, but they're definitely not going to solve more problems than they create, at least at first. Mesh routing is complicated, especially with very low data rates and mobile nodes. I believe the current applications for LoRaWAN mesh networking are mainly environmental sensors that are polled at extremely low rates (handfuls of bytes per day, not per second) and don't necessarily move very often. In any case, mesh networking between multiple human users will take a very long time to realize, since LoRa is proprietary and chips supporting it are still very uncommon. The PineCom would be the first handset-type device I have ever heard of which contains a LoRa chip.
I'm not trying to say that this device won't be useful; I'm mainly just trying to find out where I might be wrong. A lot of people seem excited about including LoRaWAN functionality in a handheld device, and with my limited knowledge of LPWAN technologies, I'm struggling to share that excitement myself.
This surely is not an appropriate venue for such politically-polarized statements, don't you think?
In any case, it certainly isn't the place for arguing over whether a proposed class of communication device makes it too easy for the wrong people to resist authority. It's hard to see any good faith in that argument.
In particular:
- LoRa is a proprietary specification (unlike 802.11, Bluetooth, etc.) and is thus relatively uncommon, since only a small number of vendors (one?) can produce compatible chips.
- LoRa's datarates are extremely small, potentially slower than even those of dial-up telephone modems. In order to achieve its maximum link budget (about 170 dB), it has to reduce its data throughput to about 300 bits per second. Even using something as minimalistic as IRC at those speeds will be frustrating by modern standards, and loading multimegabyte webpages will be virtually out of the question.
- LoRa's theoretical link budget - how much the signal can attenuate between devices and still be heard - is high, but it's not magic. I don't have any reason to expect that two devices in different parts of the same city, for example, will stand much of a chance of hearing each other. This is still UHF, nearly microwave, and it isn't going to propagate through large structures very well. The chirp spread-spectrum modulation scheme that LoRa uses does have some resistance to multipath fading, so it's possible that highly dispersed reflections off of buildings are more useful than I'm expecting them to be, but I'm still very skeptical of this.
- Mesh networks are a possibility, but they're definitely not going to solve more problems than they create, at least at first. Mesh routing is complicated, especially with very low data rates and mobile nodes. I believe the current applications for LoRaWAN mesh networking are mainly environmental sensors that are polled at extremely low rates (handfuls of bytes per day, not per second) and don't necessarily move very often. In any case, mesh networking between multiple human users will take a very long time to realize, since LoRa is proprietary and chips supporting it are still very uncommon. The PineCom would be the first handset-type device I have ever heard of which contains a LoRa chip.
I'm not trying to say that this device won't be useful; I'm mainly just trying to find out where I might be wrong. A lot of people seem excited about including LoRaWAN functionality in a handheld device, and with my limited knowledge of LPWAN technologies, I'm struggling to share that excitement myself.
(10-25-2020, 05:26 AM)KC9UDX Wrote: What we don't need: "protesters" with better covert communication/organisational ability. I'm all for liberty, but only in the name of peace.
This surely is not an appropriate venue for such politically-polarized statements, don't you think?
In any case, it certainly isn't the place for arguing over whether a proposed class of communication device makes it too easy for the wrong people to resist authority. It's hard to see any good faith in that argument.