Hi Rui,
Thank you for creating some wonderful content on ESP32.
I implemented and used LORA and would like to ask a doubt regarding a future implementation.
- I am planning to use LORA to send sensor data from MULTIPLE esp32s to a single receiver ESP32.(How many devices can I connect? Is this possible without using GATEWAY ?)
- Once the above point is done, I would like to connect the receiver to AWS using the MQTT protocol. (Is it possible/ok to configure the receiver ESP32 with both LORA and also MQTT?)
Do you think this plan of implementation will work?
Thank you
I’ve implemented LoRa transmitters, sending data to a receiver (a Raspberry Pi). An issue I had with using many transmitters is collision probability. Depending on where you live and what the rf transmission environment is there (surprisingly a lot of rf traffic by random things), you will have to do some serious filtering to get what you’re transmitting. As for many transmitters, I’ve sequenced the transmissions based on the ID of the box (which is read from a set of switches on each unit when it wakes up), so I don’t have collisions from my transmitters, and see no reason why 100+ transmitters couldn’t be being received, assuming you sequenced the transmissions. You will more likely get some collisions with neighborhood traffic losing packets since LoRa is not like TCP: it is one-way best-effort (like UDP) with no handshaking to be sure the receiver got the message. (as a side comment, I use a Raspberry Pi because it is so much easier to connect to, make changes, track errors, and significantly, program it in a more friendly and fully functional language: python. The ESP is terrific when power consumption is an issue like remote battery operated projects, but if you’ve got AC, you can’t beat a RPi – well, unless you’re making 100s of them and cost becomes an issue … my 2 cents!). Good luck in your project!
Thanks @Joe Margevicius
Your answer cleared a lot of doubts.
I am required to get information from 10 senders(ESP32s) to another ESP32 (Raspberry PI in the future). I will need to transmit temperature data continuously to the receiver(Need to avoid delays as much as possible).
Regarding sequencing transmissions: Can you please suggest what kind of sequencing can i use if I am aiming for continuous data from receivers?