shortwavesurferSep 14, 2025

what kind of speed can LoRa really do?

https://lemmy.zip/post/48637558

what kind of speed can LoRa really do? - Lemmy.zip

scenario: In the future, it is possible to update your node on your 200-foot tower by simply sending the firmware file directly to the node with a zero hop direct connection I know short fast can get about 10kbps (1KB/s) across the link, but thats just too slow to send a 1.5MB firmware update. I know that short turbo is illegal in some places, and I believe it’s because it’s using a bandwidth of 500KHz instead of the 250KHz of short fast. So if you turn the error correction way down to almost off what is about the maximum bandwidth you could hope to possibly get out of the LoRa connection at 250KHz? Even if you could pull off 125kbps (12.5KB/s) that would only require two minutes to send the firmware file from your node to the receiving node up on the tower.

Show threadStephan RodemeierSep 14, 2025

@shortwavesurfer I’ve updated nodes successfully via BLE, takes about ~7 minutes for the update to transfer. Maybe that’s something you could look into. I’ve used the MTools BLE app for it.

#meshtastic #meshcore #lora

Show threadshortwavesurferSep 14, 2025

The problem is that you can only update ESP32 devices over the air with Bluetooth.

A lot of infrastructure nodes, like routers, are going to be solar powered and likely be using the NRF52, which does not allow firmware updates that way.

So the thought is that you would either need a board with two MCUs and update one while the other is running and then reboot and switch to the new update one or send the file to like an SD card external storage and reboot the node from the SD card update.

Show threadStephan Rodemeier
@shortwavesurfer the node I’ve updated was a rak4631, so that works fine.
Sep 14, 2025 at 8:47amWeb
Show threadshortwavesurferSep 14, 2025
Oh, I stand corrected then. I thought the only devices you could update over the air like that were the ESP32 devices. Still though, if your router is 200 feet up on a tower, even if you’re standing at the base of that tower, would you be able to even connect to the Bluetooth of the node?
Show threadStephan RodemeierSep 14, 2025
@shortwavesurfer you might have to use directional antennas on both sides for that
Show threadStephan RodemeierSep 14, 2025
@shortwavesurfer and you’d probably want this bootloader so you can retry without falling back to USB: https://github.com/oltaco/Adafruit_nRF52_Bootloader_OTAFIX
GitHub - oltaco/Adafruit_nRF52_Bootloader_OTAFIX: USB-enabled bootloaders for the nRF52 BLE SoC chips

USB-enabled bootloaders for the nRF52 BLE SoC chips - oltaco/Adafruit_nRF52_Bootloader_OTAFIX

GitHub