LoRaWAN on Halley Adams | Blog

What can you actually do with LoRaWAN?

Thu, 14 May 2026 11:00:00 +0000

I have written a lot of words about how LoRaWAN works. The modulation technique, the network architecture, the classes, the UK spectrum regulations. All of it useful context. But the question I keep getting asked, and the one I ask myself when I am trying to justify the infrastructure spend, is simpler: what can you actually do with this?

The honest answer is more interesting than I expected when I started researching it properly.

Can You Send Email Over LoRaWAN or MeshCore?

Sat, 09 May 2026 22:20:00 +0000

The question came up in the context of the self-sufficiency piece on MeshCore: if the internet is down and you need to communicate with someone, can you send them an email over the mesh? It is a reasonable question. Email is how most people think about written communication. Mesh radio is what you have when the internet is gone. The overlap seems obvious.

The honest answer is: it depends entirely on what you mean by email. If you mean SMTP, TLS handshakes, MIME encoding, and headers — no, not really. If you mean “a written message delivered to a specific recipient who can read it later” — then yes, both LoRaWAN and MeshCore can do versions of that, though neither calls it email.

LoRaWAN Antenna Theory and What Actually Matters

Fri, 08 May 2026 22:20:00 +0000

Most LoRa guides spend a lot of time on gateways, network servers, and application integrations. The antenna gets a paragraph at most, usually something like “attach the included antenna before powering on.” That advice is technically correct but leaves out the part that actually determines how well your network works.

The antenna is where the radio signal meets the physical world. Everything upstream of it, the transmit power, the spreading factor, the sensitivity of the receiver, is fixed by the hardware and the protocol. The antenna is the one variable in the link that you directly control, and making a poor choice there cannot be compensated for anywhere else in the system.

MeshCore and the Case for Communications You Actually Own

Fri, 08 May 2026 22:00:00 +0000

There is a version of self-sufficiency that most people think about: growing food, storing water, generating power. And then there is a version that gets far less attention: communication. The ability to send a message, coordinate with people nearby, and stay informed when the normal channels are unavailable.

Most of our communication infrastructure is borrowed. The phone in your pocket works because a mobile network operator has towers in range and the internet backbone is intact. The apps on it work because servers are running in data centres owned by companies that can, and occasionally do, go offline. When any part of that chain fails, your ability to communicate fails with it. You do not own the pipe. You just use it.

LoRaWAN Light Control with a Stream Deck

Thu, 07 May 2026 22:45:00 +0000

There is something satisfying about a physical button that does a real thing. Not a touchscreen, not a voice command, not an app. A button you press with your finger that makes a light happen somewhere else, over a radio network, through infrastructure you built yourself.

This article covers the software stack for making that work from the Raspberry Pi and Stream Deck end. The LoRaWAN node that receives the command and actually switches the light is hardware that does not exist yet, so that half is documented conceptually rather than practically. Everything on the Pi side, though, can be installed, configured, and tested today.

Choosing Your First LoRaWAN Gateway

Thu, 07 May 2026 16:00:00 +0000

Everything else in this LoRaWAN series is software. ChirpStack runs on February. MQTT runs on February. Home Assistant runs on a Pi. The data pipeline, the dashboards, the automation — all of that is configuration and patience. The gateway is the one piece of dedicated hardware the whole thing depends on, and it is worth thinking about properly before buying.

This article is about what I am looking for and why, not a hands-on review. I do not have a gateway yet. When I do, and when it is talking to ChirpStack and I have an opinion about whether the thing is actually any good, I will write that article too. For now: the decision-making process.

Can You Use LoRaWAN for Light Switches?

Wed, 06 May 2026 23:00:00 +0000

Someone asked me this recently, and it is a good question because the answer is not a flat no. It is more nuanced than that, and understanding why tells you something useful about what LoRaWAN is actually for.

The short version: LoRaWAN can control things, but it is not designed for anything where responsiveness matters. A light switch that takes a second or two to respond is not a light switch anyone wants to use. So for that specific use case, no. But the longer answer is worth working through, because there are actuator scenarios where LoRaWAN is entirely the right choice.

Integrating ChirpStack with Home Assistant

Wed, 06 May 2026 22:35:00 +0000

ChirpStack does not talk to Home Assistant directly. There is no native integration, no one-click setup, no magic. What ChirpStack does is publish sensor data to MQTT, and Home Assistant can consume MQTT, so the two systems connect through a broker in the middle. That is the whole architecture. Everything else is just the details of making it work cleanly.

If you have not read the MQTT article in this series, now is a good time. The short version: MQTT is a lightweight publish/subscribe messaging protocol. ChirpStack publishes uplink data as JSON over MQTT, and to receive data from a device you subscribe to its MQTT topic. Home Assistant subscribes to those topics and turns the payloads into sensor entities. The broker sits between them, routing messages.

Ofcom and the spectrum you are already using

Wed, 06 May 2026 16:00:00 +0000

Most people who build things with LoRa hardware have a vague awareness that there are regulations somewhere, that you are supposed to use the EU_868 frequency plan in the UK, and that something called a duty cycle applies. Most people have not read the actual regulatory documents. I had not either, until I decided I should, and it turned out to be more interesting than I expected.

This piece is about the UK spectrum regulatory landscape as it applies to LoRa, LoRaWAN, MeshCore, Meshtastic, and the broader category of licence-exempt radio equipment that most of us in the hobbyist and IoT space are quietly operating. It is not legal advice. It is an honest attempt to read the primary documents and explain what they actually say in language that does not require a telecommunications law degree.

Self-Hosted LoRaWAN with ChirpStack

Tue, 05 May 2026 22:35:00 +0000

ChirpStack is the open source LoRaWAN network server. It handles device authentication, packet deduplication from multiple gateways, adaptive data rate management, and delivery of sensor data to your application layer via MQTT. It is the software that sits at the centre of a private LoRaWAN deployment, doing the work that The Things Network or Helium would do in a public network arrangement, except entirely on your own infrastructure.

This guide walks through installing ChirpStack v4 on an Ubuntu server using the native apt packages. The target is the February homelab server once it is running, but the steps work on any Ubuntu 22.04 or 24.04 server.

WiFi Protected Setup

Tue, 05 May 2026 22:30:00 +0000

WiFi Protected Setup (WPS) is a network security standard introduced in 2006, designed to make it easier to connect devices to a WiFi network without manually entering the SSID and passphrase. It works via two mechanisms: a push button on the router, or an eight-digit PIN.

The push button method is relatively benign. Press the button on the router and press the WPS button on the device within two minutes. They negotiate the connection automatically.

LoRaWAN at home

Tue, 05 May 2026 22:05:00 +0000

There is a moment in every homelab journey where you run out of obvious things to build. The servers are running. The network is segmented. The backups are automated. The certificates are signed by your own CA. The VPN connects all three sites. You look at what you have and think: this is genuinely good. And then you start wondering what comes next.

For me, what came next was LoRaWAN.

MQTT

Mon, 04 May 2026 19:00:00 +0000

There is a protocol that sits quietly underneath a significant proportion of the world’s IoT infrastructure, moving data between sensors and servers and dashboards without anyone much noticing it is there. It is not glamorous. It does not have a marketing budget. It has been around since 1999, which in internet years makes it practically ancient. And yet if you are building anything involving sensors, radio networks, or home automation, you will almost certainly end up using it.

The Helium IoT Network

Mon, 04 May 2026 11:00:00 +0000

I came to Helium the way I come to most things: sideways. I was reading about LoRa mesh networks, which led me to LoRaWAN, which led me to the question of who actually operates public LoRaWAN infrastructure and why. The answer, in a lot of cities, turns out to be a combination of community enthusiasts and people who bought a small radio device because someone on the internet told them it would earn them passive income in cryptocurrency.

The MeshCore Drama

Sun, 03 May 2026 22:55:00 +0000

If you’ve read my previous posts about Meshtastic and the T-Deck Plus, you might have already noticed some weirdness if you went looking for MeshCore resources. In April 2026, the project went through a pretty significant split, and since I’ve been actively recommending it, this is what I’ve figured is going on based on my very limited browsing of r/MeshCore and reading the posts on both websites

The short version: there are now two competing ecosystems both using the MeshCore name, and they are not the same thing.

The T-Deck Plus and MeshCore

Sun, 03 May 2026 22:45:00 +0000

In my last post I talked about getting started with Meshtastic, and I mentioned the LILYGO T-Deck as a device worth looking at. Well. I’ve since gone slightly deeper down the rabbit hole and landed on the T-Deck Plus running MeshCore, and I want to talk about why I’m going to buy this device.

Wait, what’s MeshCore?

Good question. Meshtastic isn’t the only firmware you can run on LoRa hardware. MeshCore is an alternative that takes a similar “off-grid mesh messaging” concept and does some things differently, particularly around how the network is structured and how devices operate as standalone terminals rather than phone companions.

Setting Up a MeshCore Relay in Your Homelab

Sat, 02 May 2026 13:00:00 +0000

A homelab is actually an ideal location for MeshCore infrastructure. The main constraint is antenna placement: LoRa signals do not travel well through server cases, concrete floors, and rack enclosures. The hardware lives inside, but the antenna needs to see the world.

What you are building

A homelab MeshCore relay consists of two distinct roles, and the strong recommendation is to run them on separate hardware:

A repeater that forwards packets between companions and other repeaters, forming the routing backbone of the mesh. It runs autonomously, requires no client connection, and periodically advertises its presence on the network map.

Meshtastic vs MeshCore, Which is the better solution for the UK?

Fri, 01 May 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Off-grid mesh networking has had a quiet revolution over the last couple of years. LoRa radios, long the territory of hobbyists and amateur radio operators, have become genuinely accessible: affordable hardware, solid open-source firmware, and growing communities of people deploying nodes on rooftops, hills, and windowsills across the country.

The two dominant firmware platforms right now are Meshtastic and MeshCore. They run on the same hardware. They serve the same broad purpose. And they make almost entirely different decisions about how to get there. Understanding those decisions is how you pick the right one for your situation.

Getting Started with Meshtastic

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 22:40:00 +0000

So I’ve been getting into Meshtastic lately, and like any good rabbit hole, I’m already in deep enough that I want to drag other people in with me.

If you’ve never heard of it: Meshtastic is an open-source project that lets you build your own off-grid mesh network using cheap LoRa radio devices. No internet. No cell signal. No infrastructure you don’t own. You and whoever else has a device can communicate across surprisingly long distances entirely independently of anyone else’s systems.