I hope we see a 8011.ah version of the ESP8266 soon. A solar powered GK-RadMon (https://sites.google.com/site/diygeigercounter/gk-radmon) would be the perfect device for this new standard.
Wi-Fi Alliance introduces low power, long range Wi-Fi HaLow
71–80 of 83 posts
Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces low power, long range Wi-Fi HaLow
#72Wi-Fi HaLow has a chance of success if it can be integrated into regular Wi-Fi access points.
LTE category-0 introduced with specification release 12 (and to be expanded in rel-13) is another competitor (other than LoraWan).
Here's more information: http://blog.3g4g.co.uk/2015/03/lte-category-0-low-power-m2m-...
Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces low power, long range Wi-Fi HaLow
#73So, can my Macbook connect to a HaLow router, or is this a new protocol that will require all new hardware across the board?
This standard is targeted to low power consuming devices. So the question is more like "Will the new HaLow devices be able to connect to my home router". And looks like the answer is they won't.
I think after a while they will. Wifi chips supporting both current frequency bands cost pennies at the moment, if this standard gets some foothold it won't be too long before it's added in to generic chips.
Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces low power, long range Wi-Fi HaLow
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm somewhat concerned about LoRa and things like it for that reason. Having a transmitter emitting energy in your band is bad. But having a bunch of transmitters emitting coherent energy you're receiver can detect it worse. The former just cuts down your signal to noise. The latter directly limits your available bandwidth. Which is to say, if your radio detects the beginning of a weak packet from far away it's locke…
LoraWan is inherently monolithic. There is only supposed to be one LoraWan provider, who acts as the router, and passes traffic to receiver according to their address -- just like a cell tower. You don't have a hundred cell towers, you have 3.
Not so. Sigfox has a single operator model: they're the only operator for their proprietary technology. But LoRa is multi-operator: anyone can buy LoRa base station and deploy their network (it's in unlicensed spectrum). And it's already happening this way.
So several operators and even technologies will share the same limited unlicensed spectrum. Should be interesting when it scales...
Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces low power, long range Wi-Fi HaLow
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Still wouldn't change much because, thanks god, the US law is not global ^^
The U.S. has trade negotiations which tend to include mutual or compatible copyright law with most of the countries in the world.
Yes, they are among the biggest copyright aggressors of the world. Just like L Lessig, I care about common sense copyright policy, which forces me to care about reforming the U.S. campaign finance system so that congress can represent the people again.
Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces low power, long range Wi-Fi HaLow
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, it claims 2-5km urban and up to 45km rural ! Important question though, is there an affordable module available (ideally also easy to use)? Sniffing around, all I can find is modules costing $45 or more, which kind of kills my enthusiasm for using it in personal projects.
Have a look for RFM98W (434Mhz) or RFM95W (868MHz) on aliexpress/ebay, they're around $14 there. I know in the UK high altitude balloon community they've used them in flights - http://www.daveakerman.com/?p=1850 Although FSK works just as well in the case of balloons.
Ebay has them for less then $10, + $2 shipping (RFM98W (434Mhz) or RFM95W (868MHz))
Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces low power, long range Wi-Fi HaLow
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
LoraWan is inherently monolithic. There is only supposed to be one LoraWan provider, who acts as the router, and passes traffic to receiver according to their address -- just like a cell tower. You don't have a hundred cell towers, you have 3.
Not so. Sigfox has a single operator model: they're the only operator for their proprietary technology. But LoRa is multi-operator: anyone can buy LoRa base station and deploy their network (it's in unlicensed spectrum). And it's already happening this way. So several operators and even technologies will share the same limited unlicensed spectrum. Should be interesting when it scales...
It was designed to be "single operator", but that's not how it is shaking out. I think a trainwreck is coming, because if you have multiple LoRaWAN networks operating in the same area, all the packets are colliding at layer 2. They have to be thrown away by the server. And since the Semtech SX1301 baseband chip only has 8 demodulators, capacity quickly approaches zero, if there are multiple uncoordinated networks.
LoRaWAN is an okay solution for European Carrier networks where duty cycle limitations come into pay, but for the 915MHz band, it is not a good design.
Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces low power, long range Wi-Fi HaLow
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree, the wink hub already ships with something like 5 different radios. Also this doesn't look like it supports mesh networking. What advantages does it offer over z-wave or zigbee? And will it be better than Insteon's or Lurton's protocols?
It supports IP, which is a nice benefit for interoperability and standalone usage (it doesn't require a "smart" hub that understands all of the protocols).
But it does require a bunch of smart apps that can speak the language for each device you toss on the network.
Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces low power, long range Wi-Fi HaLow
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except that I can't buy it, it doesn't seem to have a stack, and doesn't have any open implementations to examine. But, other than that, LoraWan is better. Uh, yeah. Come back when LoraWan is shipping something other than vapor.
So Sematech and Tata's LoraWan plan in India is vaporware? They claimed successful tests, and said their network is open to testing end-to-end by IoT developers. This is a serious question, I just moved most of my stock portfolio into Sematech after that news. If Sematech's LoraWan is real, this is the best pureplay futurist stock I've seen since Tobii.
UWB was a wonderful technology and claimed successful tests and was open to developers. So was WiMAX (which actually did work). Where are they now?
Almost all the TI low-power RF stuff is real. Anything LoraWAN claims could have been done with these kinds of TI chips: http://www.ti.com/product/cc1125
So, why hasn't it? Mostly because these frequencies need big external antennas. TI has a very nice whitepaper about trying to create integrated PCB antennas for these lower frequencies and how much power you lose (answer--a whole lot). I don't think people are going to be very happy strapping a 6 inch whip antenna onto their tiny LED light.
And, these TI chips actually can run off a coin cell. Unlike the loraWAN stuff which flags Tx power consumption as up to 100mA. Coin cells are still ruled out.
That's not an improvement over, well, anything.
And, I note that Microchip is claiming to be shipping dev kits sometime this quarter. This is Microchip. I won't hold my breath, and I still mark this as vapor.
Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces low power, long range Wi-Fi HaLow
#80It looks neat, but it's hard not to be cynical about yet another competing standard for low-power "smart home" / IoT-type devices, just to muddy the ZigBee vs. Z-Wave vs. BT LE Longrange vs. conventional WiFi waters a bit more. Not saying there's anything wrong with the protocol per se; it's probably perfectly fine. But the lack of widespread standardization in the 900MHz ISM low power space is really crippling what…
Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/927/
relevant goatkccd: http://goatkcd.com/927/sfw