How to get started with LoRaWan

[Music] hi and welcome back to another tech mines video now if you ever thought about learning how Laura one works and got put off because of the intricate setup of hardware and backend software then look no further now in this video we'll take a look at a fairly new Laura package sold by Seed Studio and it's the sense Camp Laura Juan starter kit now for those of you that either haven't heard of Laura or know how it works technically then let me briefly explain now Laura essentially stands for long range and it uses a proprietary radio communication technique based on spread Spectrum now Laura uses unlicensed frequency bands so there's no issue with anyone using Laura without a license because there isn't one for the standard Laura frequencies now here in the UK and Europe we use use around 868 MHz while in the North and South America including Asia use around 9115 MHz so just make sure you order any Laura kit that's suitable for your region okay so now we know technically what Laura is but what can it do now Laura onean which essentially stands for long range wide area network is a cluster of Laura one gateways set up around the world now these are normally found in people's homes or set up up on top of hilltops they're also installed and put together by Laura enthusiasts however there is a massive commercial interest in these projects which also use the same network now on the left on this slide we have our sensors or end devices now these are the devices which take a measurement and then transmit that measurement data to a Laura one Gateway now the end devices can be anything from GPS trackers to temperature sensors light sensors door sensors well the list goes on now once a Laura Gateway receives a packet from an end device it will forward it to the network server which that Gateway has been configured to an application will then sit querying the network server for any of the sensor data this can be in the form of a web app a mobile app or even a desktop application a popular Network server is the things Network which I'm sure if you've heard of iot I Internet of Things then you would have heard of the things Network the M2 multiplatform Gateway which is included in this Laura one starter Kip is set up to send its data to the sense cap Network server however this can be changed to forward to any server of your choice and I'll cover that in another video but in this video we'll use the sense cap Network server as it's the most easiest to set up with this kit now in the Box we find a magnetic antenna base a main power supply to power the Gateway the Gateway itself and of course an antenna now the antenna itself to screws onto the magnetic base and the other end of the cable plugs into the M2 Gateway for an SMA connection on one side of the Gateway we have the power socket an Ethernet socket a USBC console socket a reset button along with a micro SDR card slot and some Led indicators now in the model I received there is no LTE nano SIM socket so this Gateway will rely on the internet provided by the ethernet socket or the onboard Wi-Fi which obviously then connects to your home internet on the other side we just have one SMA socket and that's where you connect your Laura antenna as this is a starter kit there are a range of sensors included now first up is this little board where all of the sensors plug into now you do get a little ESP p32 S3 board included which needs to have the headers soldered on before you can attach it to this board we then have a Laura E5 board which is the Laura transmitter and receiver this also plugs into the little breakout board I showed you a moment ago then we have a temperature and humidity sensor again this plugs into that breakout board with the supplied cable now the last sensor in the kit is a soil moisture sensor again this PL into that breakout board using the supplied cable now there's lots of other different sensors that you can purchase separately but to get you started these are going to be the most easiest to set up and actually see some data whether it's on a web app or a mobile phone app now at this stage you have two choices you can either set up an account through their website or set up an account on your mobile device now I would however recommend to use the mobile app as it's so much easier and quicker so with the sense CAP app downloaded from the App Store use the register button to create an account once you have a registered account sign into the Sens CAP app on your mobile device you'll now need to add the Laura transmitter board as a device this will bring in all of the sensors that are attached to that little breakout board tap on the top Green Plus button on the top right the app will now use your camera so that you can scan the little square QR code that's printed on the label on the rear of the Laura board now as soon as the app has read the contents of the QR code the device's details will be shown on the screen tap the bind to Account button located towards the Bottom now this will bind your Laura transmitter and sensors to your account you can now tap on the device and view the sensor data like this you can go through each of the sensor's data now over time the data will start to accumulate and you can go back through and look at historical data so what do you think how quick and easy was that now another cool thing you can do is actually add the Laura onean Gateway as a device on the app now this is so that you can check if the Gateway is actually online and connected to the sense cap servers just add it the same way as we did for the senses and you see it listed in the device list if we now move over to the web portal we can sign in using the same credentials as we did on the mobile app and once logged in we'll see that the devices are already added now on the left side of the menu you can select the sensor node and then just select that particular node if you head to the data tab you should see some data same as what was shown on the app now I have quite a bit shown here because I've had it running a while a dashboard can be customized by adding measurements to a scene you can also add Charts which can be shown as a line or a bar graph now this is a great visual historical view at a quick glance now Seed Studio have lots of other sensors which are compatible with this system so if you're interested go and check out their website I'll leave a link below in the description of this video as usual so what if you wanted to use this Gateway with another Network server like the things Network well that's easy but for this you'll need to access the control panel of the actual Gateway using a browser the login credentials are listed on the serial number sticker on the bottom of the Gateway Hardware once logged in go to the Laura tab and change the mode from sense cap to packet forwarder the things Network server details will already be filled in so just click on Save and apply now of course you will need a things Network account and you will need to bind your end devices to your account now I do plan on making another video in the near future to show you how you can use this Laura one Gateway with the things Network well there we go guys that's the Laura one starter kit from Seed Studio now tell me what do you think about that in my opinion that was really easy now I haven't personally experimented much with Laura especially Laura 1 but for me it's a great introduction to setting up my own Laura onean Gateway plus it's given me lots of inspiration and an urge to learn more about it and what can be done with it until the next video guys take care stay safe and thanks for watching see you in the next one [Music]

Channel: Tech Minds

Views: 10,529

Keywords: lorawan, starter, kit, lora starter kit, seeed studio, sensecap, how to get started in lora, how to setup lorawan, lorawan gateway, the things network, ttn, lilygo, lora tracker, how to setup a lora tracker

Id: X08qvPm_dAg

Length: 9min 3sec (543 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 11 2023