LoRa and LoRaWAN are constantly growing in both usage and network size. With active networks like The Things Network, OpenChirp, CableLabs and more, it’s easier to take advantage of pre-existing LoRa networks or build your own private network. Getting started is easy — take, for example, this RP2040-powered LoRaWAN development board.
With the benefits of low-power, long-distance communication, encryption and wide library support, it’s a great way to network together groups of sensors which pass data between themselves or to a central node, which can optionally forward the data onto the Internet. Combining LoRaWAN, TCP/IP, 5G, and protocols like MQTT can make for a robust and reliable full-stack solution that can be quickly set up and prototyped.
This board has everything you need to get going quickly — it features the common RP2040 dual-core ARM Cortex-M0+ chip, an LR1262 LoRa module and an antenna to get connected. A 1.8″ SPI LCD display is a great addition. It can be used in the end application and during development/debugging cycles to display information about connection status, signal strength, and sensor data, for example. There are lots of GPIO broken out, with common connectors like Grove/STEMMA for I2C and UART. There’s even an RS485 interface, which is extremely useful if interfacing with industrial networks or connecting over a long cable run to another board. USB Type-C and other SPI/I2C/UART headers round out the extensive I/O available.
The RP2040 SDK is very well documented, and communication with the LR1262 uses a simple AT command interface. Alternatively, it’s easy to flash the RP2040 with CircuitPython and quickly get a system running using existing code and libraries.
