Re: LoRa

Hey Dan, didn’t think you’d be online – my and Jo-Anne’s condolences to you and Ruth Ann on the passing of her father. 

 

The reason I asked about the alarm lights relates to that short discussion we had about the possibility of adding a wireless component to them.  Something I mentioned we could use is a technology called LoRa (for “Long Range” wireless) which is similar to Wi-Fi but has a range of up to a quarter of a mile.  It’s a proprietary technology owned by the company Semtech and they licence it to other companies that use it for a wide range of applications.  One of those companies is YoSmart who uses it in their YoLink line of products. 

 

The YoLink products of interest are the “hub” and the “outdoor contact sensor”.  The hub connects to any internet connection via ethernet or Wi-Fi and connects to an app on a PC or smartphone.  It also uses LoRa to reach remote devices, such as one or more outdoor contact sensors.  This device is powered by batteries that can last up to 5 years.  There are two ways it can work, 1) by use of a magnet moving close to or away from the device (eg. opening or closing of a door/window/gate) and 2) with a set of “dry” contacts (no power) – these are commonly used for alarm sensors its common for them to have multiple sets of contacts that could be used for this.  How it would work (assuming there’s an unused set of dry contacts in the monitoring unit) is that when an alarm condition occurs that turns on the light, it also triggers the YoLink sensor device, which sends an alarm/change of state signal via LoRa to the hub and it in turn pushes a message to the app on the PC/smartphone.  The person receiving this message can then follow the same steps as would be taken if they had been made aware of a visual signal.

 

This is the kind of stuff I did in my past career but as simple as this would be to set up, I wouldn’t like to create a dependency on me in case Christie Brinkley asks me to run away with her.  Do you know if we have electrical diagrams of this equipment?  I could take a look at them to see if what I’m proposing is feasible or if additional work/equipment would be required and be able to open a discussion with HOW.

 

About the cost; the hubs and sensors are regularly less than $50 each – but they have a sale on right now with the hubs going for $31 and the sensors $28, but that might not include shipping, so Amazon might have the best price.

 

If you’re interested in some reading….

 

About the technology;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRa

https://www.semtech.com/lora/what-is-lora

 

About the hub and sensor device;

https://shop.yosmart.com/collections/hubkits/products/yolink-hub

https://shop.yosmart.com/collections/security/products/outdoor-contact-sensor

 

Also, there’s some talk about LoRa becoming an alternative to Wi-Fi at some point in the future, but right now it can only handle very low volumes of data.  I mention this because I’m still dabbling into setting up a low cost internet service for the Park.

 

Trevor
/LoRa.txt