LoRa Radio Transceiver Bonnet RFM95W

RadioFruit: LoRa Radio Transmitter-Receiver Bonnet with OLED – RFM95W @ 868 MHz (European)

With this LoRa/LoRaWAN radio, you can enhance your Raspberry Pi board and communicate over truly long distances.
Simply plug this Bonnet into your Raspberry Pi and you’ll be able to set up Internet gateways or connect to remote nodes (which can even be battery-powered), thanks to the long-range wireless communication capabilities this Bonnet offers.

Along with the radio module, you’ll also get a 128×32-pixel OLED display for status messages and three buttons for sending text messages or creating a custom user interface. With the help of Python libraries, you can send data to a LoRaWAN gateway, set up a single LoRaWAN channel to Internet gateways, or even send or receive LoRa data with other compatible modules.

Unlike the Raspberry Pi’s Wi-Fi/Bluetooth radios, which operate at 2.4 GHz, this module transmits at 900 MHz (sub-GHz, US standard). It’s slower, but the data you send will travel much further. As well as being simpler than Wi-Fi or BLE, with this compact radio you won’t have to worry about pairing, connecting or anything else. Simply send your data and any other module – provided it has the same key (encryption system) and shares the same frequency – will receive the data and can also send replies. This module can do it all: error correction, packetisation and auto-retransmission; furthermore, it requires less power to establish or maintain a link.

The LoRa Radio Bonnet can be used with other microcontrollers that have compatible radios, such as RadioFruit Feathers, if you want a sensor node network or if you wish to transmit data across a city or other large areas, for example. But remember that you’ll need at least two radios – or even more – with matching frequencies.

There are numerous variants of this module, with different frequencies and modulation schemes. The RFM69 models are the best known and easiest to use, while LoRa radios are more powerful but also, to some extent, more expensive.

This 900 MHz LoRa radio version can be used for transmission/reception at 868 MHz (Europe) or 915 MHz (USA). It is not possible to determine the exact radio frequency until the software is loaded, as it will be tuned dynamically. This compact LoRa +20dBm radio is shipped with a special radio modulation that makes it NOT compatible with RFM69 radios, although it can transmit much further. Using simple wire antennas, it easily achieves 2 km line of sight (LOS); alternatively, using directional antennas and a bit of fine-tuning, it can reach up to 20 km.

• Compact radio with ready-to-use CircuitPython libraries.
• Uses the licence-free ISM band: ‘European ISM’ @ 868 MHz or ‘American ISM’ @ 915 MHz.
• Uses a simple wire antenna, a spot for uFL, or an SMA radio connector.
• LoRa SX1276 module with SPI interface.
• +5 to +20 dBm with up to 100 mW power output capability (power output is selectable via the software)
• ~100 mA peak during transmission at +20 dBm, ~30 mA during active radio listening.
• Range of approximately 2 km, depending on frequency, obstructions, antenna and power output.

This radio is sold individually and can only communicate with radios that share the same model number: the LoRa RFM95W 915 MHz can only communicate with other LoRa RFM95W 915 MHz units.

Each RFM95W 915 MHz LoRa Radio Bonnet is shipped fully assembled and ready to use. You can build your own antenna by cutting and soldering some wire, or you can connect it to an antenna using the uFL connector.

Some useful ideas for this LoRa Radio Bonnet

• Main guide: Adafruit’s Radio Bonnet with OLED display. Enhance your Raspberry Pi with a LoRa radio – you’ll be able to reach much greater distances!
• LoRa Radio for Raspberry Pi. Add low-power, long-range radio communication to your RPI project.
• Climate monitoring network with LoRa, Feather + Raspberry Pi. Create your own network of temperature nodes and routers using two Feathers and a Radio Bonnet.

LoRa Radio bonnet RFM95W @ 868 MHz technical details:

• Dimensions: 65.2×30.6x9mm
• Weight: 11g

Adafruit name: LoRa Radio Bonnet with OLED – RFM95W @ 915MHz – RadioFruit [ADA4074]