OpenMQTTGateway: Lora and RF on 433 MHz AND 868 MHz? Maybe with two transceivers?

[Nickduino]

Hi guys (Bonjour Florian, if you come by)!

I couldn’t find the info in the doc but it is so exhaustive that I may have missed it entirely…

I have a Heltec WiFi LoRa 32 (V2) board (so, with an SX1276, I believe). I’d like to use it as a LoRa gateway and RF gateway.

Can I cover two frequencies on one gateway? Would I need a second transceiver (maybe a CC1101 for RF 433 MHz while the SX1276 does LoRa and RF on 868 MHz)?

[Sir_Goodenough ((SG) WhatAreWeFixing.Today)]

@Nickduino

Can I cover two frequencies on one gateway?

I don’t believe so.

[Didgeridrew]

IIRC, the V2 has “okay” performance in the 868 MHz range, and poor performance below 470 MHz… so if you are going to use it, use it just for the LORA. But, from what I’ve read, the more recent versions are substantially better.

I can recommend the LILYGO LoRa32 V2.1 with OpenMQTTGateway if you only need to receive. That’s what I’ve been using for about 2 years for the handful of “RF” devices I listen to.

[Karosm]

@Nickduino

CC1101 for RF 433 MHz while the SX1276 does LoRa and RF on 868 MHz)?

Sounds like good plan.

[Nickduino]

@1technophile Florian, maybe you could chime in?

@Didgeridrew

IIRC, the V2 has “okay” performance in the 868 MHz range, and poor performance below 470 MHz… so if you are going to use it, use it just for the LORA. But, from what I’ve read, the more recent versions are substantially better.

I already have the Heltec board in a drawer, so I’d like to use it. The RF performance depends on the transceiver, right? If I connect a CC1101 set up for 433, the board’s performance should be irrelevant, shouldn’t it?

@Didgeridrew

I can recommend the LILYGO LoRa32 V2.1 with OpenMQTTGateway if you only need to receive. That’s what I’ve been using for about 2 years for the handful of “RF” devices I listen to.

I thought OpenMQTTGateway could send LoRa messages too

@Karosm

@Nickduino

CC1101 for RF 433 MHz while the SX1276 does LoRa and RF on 868 MHz)?

Sounds like good plan.

But can I connect the CC1101 on the same Heltec board or do I need a second ESP32?

[WallyR (Wally)]

These small SoC boards have very little computing power, so do not expect it to be able to decide more one protocol, and definitely not when it is in different frequency ranges.

Besides that your SX1276 is probably a LoRa chip, so some of the protocol is handled inside the chip and it can maybe therefore not be used with other protocols.

In other words you need way more powerful boards or you need to have a board for each protocol.

[Karosm]

@Nickduino

But can I connect the CC1101 on the same Heltec board or do I need a second ESP32?

I don’t know your specific esp board, but if SPI pins are available, shouldn’t be a problem to add cc1101 there. On the other hand, it’s likely easier to just get cheap esp32-c3 (for example) and run them separately.

[Didgeridrew]

@Nickduino

I thought OpenMQTTGateway could send LoRa messages too

The LORA component supports receive and transmit, but the RTL433 component that OMG uses is receive-only…

[Nickduino]

@Karosm

@Nickduino

But can I connect the CC1101 on the same Heltec board or do I need a second ESP32?

I don’t know your specific esp board, but if SPI pins are available, shouldn’t be a problem to add cc1101 there. On the other hand, it’s likely easier to just get cheap esp32-c3 (for example) and run them separately.

The question, really, is whether or not OpenMQTTGateway is able to manage two transceivers on the same board.

@Didgeridrew

The LORA component supports receive and transmit, but the RTL433 component that OMG uses is receive-only…

It depends which library you wanna use with OpenMQTTGateway

[Karosm]

@Nickduino

The question, really, is whether or not OpenMQTTGateway is able to manage two transceivers on the same board.

Or likely, how painful it is to configure it.