Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

BYOMesh – New LoRa mesh radio offers 100x the bandwidth

partyon.xyz

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 168 posts

Re: BYOMesh – New LoRa mesh radio offers 100x the bandwidth

#121

Post by altairprime »

RobotToaster wrote: post #111
AlphaWeaver wrote: post #22

The "100x bandwidth" claim needs to be substantiated. There are some significant regulatory issues with the current popular mesh network protocols in the USA, namely that neither MeshCore or Meshtastic are compliant with the actual FCC regulations. 100x bandwidth because you're breaking the rules isn't the same as 100x bandwidth legally. Here is the issue discussing this in the MeshCore repository: https://github.com…

Seems more of an issue of outdated and de facto unenforceable regulations than an issue with the protocol.

In the U.S. I believe the FCC has federal authority to knock down your door, if they can pinpoint an illegal interference emanating from within your home. Intent is not particularly a factor in that, since interference can have a large radius and be unintentional. Seems like an awful time to be intentionally emanating ‘de facto unenforceable’ illegal signals.

Re: BYOMesh – New LoRa mesh radio offers 100x the bandwidth

#122

Post by KaiserPro »

lormayna wrote: post #27
mikeweiss wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LoRa would go much farther than Wifi on 2.4ghz. Lora uses Chirp Spread Spectrum (CSS) modulation while wifi uses OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing). The first being designed for extreme range while the latter for bandwidth. At 2.4ghz you could probably get LoRa connections up to 6 miles with the right antenna height.

6 miles seems a very optimistic estimation: 2.4Ghz propagation is very reduced by obstacles like buildings or trees and at that frequency the atmospheric water (fog, rain, humidity) have a big impact on propagation. And you need also to consider that 2.4Ghz is a very polluted band, then the noise floor is significatevly higher than in the 865/915 Mhz. Moreover at 2.4Ghz the Fresnel window is smaller and the risk of m…

> 2.4Ghz propagation is very reduced by obstacles like buildings

I never did much 2.4ghz stuff because that was what rich people did, or people mad enough to modify microwave oven magnetrons. However I was always under the impression that freespace loss on 2.4 was terrible. but it turns out its "only" ~9db more than 865

Re: BYOMesh – New LoRa mesh radio offers 100x the bandwidth

#123

Post by KaiserPro »

igorramazanov wrote: post #41

That stuff is good for drone warfare, mesh networks already been used in Ukraine E.g. drones geographically organize themselves into a chain with each of them serving as a mesh-network node, then each of them, including the tip of a chain, can be controlled by operators, and the whole setup is a closed network which works without requiring Internet access

> drones geographically organize themselves into a chain with each of them serving as a mesh-network node,

And giving away their location. Radio is prettymuch dead for drones.

Re: BYOMesh – New LoRa mesh radio offers 100x the bandwidth

#125

Post by KaiserPro »

esseph wrote: post #85
ninjagoo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That stuff is good for drone warfare > each of them serving as a mesh-network node might have worked for a bit in the past, but is easily disrupted by jammers, and forced a switch to fiber-optic in-theater. People have learned from that and don't bother with radio anymore, even in new theaters.

Not everything is fiber optic. Fiber optic tethers limit range and target conditions. You can't go into a forest or even an urban canyon, you basically need to run the drone along roads and fields. And you have to drag it with you, which reduces what you can carry. The fiber itself is very light weight and has a habit of getting sucked up into the props on quadcopters. There's a lot of frequency hopping and chirp sys…

> which reduces what you can carry.

the flip side of that is that your operator can be miles away, and using repeaters, hundreds of miles away. As the operator is the difficult to replace part, its a fair tradeoff.

Frequency hopping is nice, as is spread spectrum but its still easily detectable, as is the operator.

Re: BYOMesh – New LoRa mesh radio offers 100x the bandwidth

#126

Post by mytailorisrich »

nubinetwork wrote: post #49
nunobrito wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more rules being broken. For example, overusing the frequency which effectively prevents others users from sending messages. In the end, won't be used.

In the EU, the duty cycle limit is like 10% per hour. North America doesn't have that restriction...

I believe that they usually have a maximum dwell time, thoughs sometimes over a specific period (in which case it it equivalent to duty cycle)..

Re: BYOMesh – New LoRa mesh radio offers 100x the bandwidth

#127

Post by KaiserPro »

monssooon wrote: post #117

These technologies may not be illegal atm but as soon as the eu gets around to it they probably will be. These things circumvent all their control!?!

> These things circumvent all their control

I mean 2.4gig is unlicensed as is 433 and 939 in the EU, so unless its not conforming with regs, no it wont be.

Re: BYOMesh – New LoRa mesh radio offers 100x the bandwidth

#128

Post by KaiserPro »

jschveibinz wrote: post #18

Seems like this would support institutional/campus environments or changing environments where the sensors at the edge are sending higher bandwidth ultimately back to an Internet node using LoRA mesh--instead of directional WiFi? I'm trying to envision the application of a mesh like this. These could be examples? - interconnected nodes need to share data (like images) - interconnected nodes are acting as a collective…

> an Internet node using LoRA mesh--instead of directional WiFi?

not really, the reason why Wifi is useful is that its reasonably efficient and high bandwidth. Unless you need to cover hectares of land without any buildings, its easier just to use decent wifi (ie unfi)

Mesh networking with multi-path is really hard to tune for bandwidth efficiency, throughput and power efficiency at the same time

Re: BYOMesh – New LoRa mesh radio offers 100x the bandwidth

#129

Post by aaron695 »

AlphaWeaver wrote: post #22

The "100x bandwidth" claim needs to be substantiated. There are some significant regulatory issues with the current popular mesh network protocols in the USA, namely that neither MeshCore or Meshtastic are compliant with the actual FCC regulations. 100x bandwidth because you're breaking the rules isn't the same as 100x bandwidth legally. Here is the issue discussing this in the MeshCore repository: https://github.com…

[dead]

Re: BYOMesh – New LoRa mesh radio offers 100x the bandwidth

#130

Post by nubinetwork »

Gigachad wrote: post #109
nubinetwork wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, I'm not too worried that I can't reach Billy in Ottawa, but you should still be able to text your mother six blocks away. /shrug

That works with just basic mesh radio. The internet bridges thing is tempting but ultimately a bit useless and doesn't push people to extend the mesh natively.

Don't get me wrong, I like the mesh/* ideas around everyone being able to prop up a router/repeater, but I've seen what that can do in an urban environment... unfortunately for some, I don't plan on letting every tom dick and harry to set up their own towers.
Post reply on HN