◀ Prev • Parts • Full • Next ▶

There are a ton of Reticulum-compatible options, see the Hardware page on this wiki and Supported Boards and Devices ↗ in the manual.

Some recommendations:

• nRF52-based boards are orders of magnitude more efficient than ESP32-based boards, while ESP32 boards have WiFi and more processing power.

• The Heltec WiFi LoRa 32 V3 is a popular option, as despite being roughly 10 times less efficient it is very cheap. If you look in the right places, it can come with a case and antenna, though neither are exceptional.

Whichever RNode you buy, make sure to get the right frequencies for your country, and check compatibility if you decide on a different one.

After you acquire your board, you will need to flash an RNode firmware.

Line of sight.

The distance varies so wildly, that’s the best answer available. Tests from a node in a house to inside a car across hilly, wooded terrain had links available to around one kilometer. Some tests in major cities had a range of a hundred meters. SSH sessions have been successfully used over 16 kilometers. Much greater distances have been reported with more or less evidence available.

The location of the antenna will make a substantial difference, as will the intervening terrain. Models are only available for determining the effects of changes on a known system, not to estimate range whole cloth.

Depends on the hardware. ESP32 based devices idle at around 150 mA for planning numbers, and varies wildly with transmit power.

nRF52 based systems have dramatically lower idle power consumption.

There are multiple airtime limit options available in the RNode interface options. See RNode LoRa Interface ↗ in the manual for details.

In the EU, RNode may be allowed relaxed limits:cite-ref-3[3]

en300/220 allows increased power and duty cycle in some bands if “advanced interference mitigation” and/or “polite spectrum acces” is implemented, or the device is “under control of a network access point”. Actual implementation into local law is not completely harmonised and varies from country to country, so you’ll have to do your own local research. But RNode does implement advanced interference mitigation techniques that conform to the performance set forth in the relevant ETSI standards if the interference avoidance option is turned on in the firmware. I’m not a lawyer, of course, so ultimately it’s anyones own judgement and responsibility of this, but at least wanted to make a note of this.

◀ Prev • Parts • Full • Next ▶