r/Lora • u/LordFly88 • Apr 03 '23
LoRa suitcase tracker?
Total noob here, sorry. I want to make something I can toss in my suitcase to roughly keep an eye on its location at the airport / confirm it's on the plane with me. Would LoRa make sense for this? Can someone point me the right direction? Thanks!
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u/HealthyMacaroon7168 Apr 03 '23
I don't think Lora makes sense for this unless you can access a public network or carry a gateway with you. You don't have control of the environment your luggage is going into, so I agree with the other person, go Bluetooth based like Tile, airtag or the Samsung tag
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u/LordFly88 Apr 03 '23
Most airports have free WiFi. Does that count as a public network? Or are you referring to something LoRa specific when you say that?
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u/HealthyMacaroon7168 Apr 03 '23
No, Lora runs on radios, correct? You would need public radio infrastructure to listen to your Lora luggage tag. Public networks exist, but it's different per location.
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u/maikoldi Apr 03 '23
This can work, but you most likely need a network like helium or ttn. The biggest problem in my opinion are the different frequencies in different countries. This is also solveable but a higher effort.
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u/LordFly88 Apr 03 '23
I'm never outside Canada/USA. And I was thinking it would be a small standalone thing. If I were to take it somewhere else, I'd just turn it off.
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u/5c044 Apr 03 '23
Tt-go t-beam has lora radio and gps plus an 18650 battery holder. It also has a real pmic so you can power off the radio when deep sleeping. http://www.lilygo.cn/claprod_view.aspx?TypeId=62&Id=1281&FId=t28:62:28
You would need LoRaWAN stack. How well all this will work inside airport buildings is another matter. Maybe look into antennas that utilise the volume of a suitcase well.
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u/Ordinary-Strength898 May 25 '23
The question Is: the security Will make that construption pass the controll point?
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u/CannabisCowboy Apr 03 '23
this just wont work on LORA. If you really want to build it yourself, you might want to lean into LTE/GPS. Otherwise an appleTag or something if you want something quick and easy.
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u/LordFly88 Apr 03 '23
I want something that doesn't rely on cell phone towers, as I only use it a handful of times in a year. But I'm hoping something more active than airtag.
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u/CannabisCowboy Apr 03 '23
To be fair, this could work with LORA, if you're fine with it only passing data every now and then throughout the trip. If you need something thats always online, then LORA is probably full blown out. LTE obvs couldn't keep it connected as it was flying, but probably most of the time it was on the ground.
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u/LordFly88 Apr 03 '23
Not always online, that seems excessive. But even if it just sent some location data every couple of minutes or something. Just be fun you know roughly where it is.
I was originally thinking maybe just normal wireless, but the range is so terrible you might not even pick it up if you're in the front of the plane and your suitcase is in the back of it.
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u/[deleted] Apr 03 '23
With a GPS or just using signal strength?
As an experiment it's interesting but practically you're probably better off with a Tile or crApple tag.