RFM95w LoRa + Particle Photon - Looking for Library Help

[rwb]

Hey everybody!

I recently tested out some 915 Mhz LoRa RFM95W radios and I'm very impressed with the range I'm getting with simple 3 inch wire antennas which is just as good as the Xbee 900 HP Pro modules I have also tested in the past for much more money.

I can see how valuable the RFM95W can be when paried up with the Particle Photon & Electron since it gives them the ability to interface with many sensors up to 1 mile away.

I would like to be able to use the $10 RFM95W LoRa radios along with the Particle Photon + the Radio Head library but currently there is no ready to go RFM95W library for the Photon. There is a RFM69 library for the Particle Photon and this is good news but I'm wondering how much work it would be to modify the Radiohead RFM95W library to get it working on the Particle Photon also?

Was all the hard work already done when creating the RFM69 library for the Photon which would make porting the RFM95W easier than starting from scratch?

Any info or advice would be greatly appreciated!

From what I can read the RFM95W has better range than the RFM69 radios. Is that correct?

[WhiteHare]

In all seriousness, why use a Photon at all instead of the existing solution?  It seems like you're making unnecessary work for yourself.

Yes, it's fair to say the RFM95 has the potential for more range than the RFM69.  At the limit, a tradeoff to get that extra range is greater transmission time (greater energy usage), so unfortunately the extra range doesn't come for free.  To quantify that a bit: with high coding gain, it can take as much as two seconds of air time to send a fairly short packet.

That said, it's a great radio, and it can also do everything the RFM69 can do, although the library to exploit its FSK capabilities hasn't yet been developed.  In many ways its FSK embodiment is similar to the RFM69's, but it's also more complicated.

[rwb]

The Photon has excellent support is a pretty powerful platform from all my experiences with it over the years.

When you say the existing solution are you talking about just using the RFM69 instead of the RFM95W?

I'm not worried about the power consumption between the RFM69 vs RFM95W since the power consumption is really low as it is plus we will be using solar to recharge daily.

Can you tell me what the main differences are between the RFM69 vs RFM95W as far as range goes?

I'm sure I can get the RFM95W library ported for the Photon but I'm digging to see if anybody has done this already before I spend a bunch of time or a little money to have somebody do the port for me.

To me so far it looks like the RFM95W is a better radio with better range than the RFM69 and since the RFM69 has been around longer it has better code to support it.

I'm here to learn so feel free to speak your mind on this issue 

[rwb]

Yea I prefer to work with the latest and greatest RFM95W since it's providing just as good of range as I'm seeing on the Xbee 900 HP Pro with high gain rubber ducky antennas at a fraction of that cost which is what has me so excited about finding these new LoRa radios.

The reason I want to get rid of the extra micro processor and just use the RFM95W with the Photon is because I'm building products that we will resell and driving down cost is important and just adding the RFM95W module to our project would run in the $8 range which is pretty cheap when comparing it to the buying the breakout boards.

Yes it does make sense to buy the Moteino Lora boards for the actual remote sensors.

So I'm just curious if Felix might know if the the work that has been done to get the RFM69 working on the Particle Photon would make it easier to get the RFM95W working also using the RadioHead library or not. I'm willing to pay for a working port if you think you can do it without to much trouble.

[WhiteHare]

Since your question seems to be directed at Felix, I suggest you PM him.

[rwb]

I emailed him but no reply.

He did move this topic to a different part of the forum so I know he has seen this so maybe his is just not interested but I still had to ask to see.

I'm not sure who did the Particle Photon port for the RFM69, maybe it was not Felix. I also emailed a guy named Charly on the Particle forum but no response from him yet either. I'm just being patient right now and seeing what comes up.

For now I guess simple serial communication between the Photon &  RFM95W would work just fine for now.

I'll post back here once I have the RFM95W ported for the Particle platform unless somebody else on here knows how to make the needed modifications.

[Felix]

rwb,
Sorry I haven't replied, I am very limited as far as direct email support or questions.
I have no experience with Photon so I am afraid I cannot really give you much direction. The library I have developed (RFM69) is strictly working with RFM69 radios. Right now there are some libraries out there for LoRa radios but I don't know how much Photon support they have. Maybe you should ask in the Photon forums. My focus is to support Moteino and I hope to have a chance to write a library for RFM95 for Moteinos.

[rwb]

Thanks Felix!

I have asked on the Particle Forums for help with this, we will see how this goes.

The RFM69 has already been ported for the Photon so now we just need to do the RFM95W.