
Show HN: FarmNet, an open-source LoRA agricultural sensing/actuation network - tehf0x
https://framagit.org/Gabe/farmnet
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tehf0x
Hey guys, just a bit of backstory as suggested by a mod:

tl;dr is that with this python script and one of the arduino sketches you can
get an out-of-the-box remote sensing network with sqlite storage that is very
easy to extend and hack on and has proven stable for over a year now.

The background:

I live in the countryside and wanted to find some ways to help out our
neighbouring farmers with my trade. One of the things you see a lot of is
remote things failing and going unnoticed -- unclosed barriers, electrified
enclosures not strong enough, escaped animals, etc. In addition to this, there
are some regular maintenance tasks -- opening/closing the chicken coop door,
irrigation, opening/closing a greenhouse -- that are trivial to define
programatically and can save a lot of time and trouble if automated.

This is the backbone to a set of other projects currently in the pipeline, but
it also includes chicken coop door opener in one of the example nodes. I have
some neighbours working on remote sensing for their solar-powered electric
fence generator using LoRa. Overall this technology's mix of low-power and
long-range transmission makes it an awesome tool for cheap, 'low'-tech
countryside hacks.

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rmason
Just a tip, in the states the term 'remote sensing' refers to aerial
photography of crops either by satellite, airplane or drone. These photos can
find problems in the growing crop related to stress.

Things may be different in Europe but over here your use of the term will
confuse people. Good luck on your project it has many applications.

[https://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/fabe-5541](https://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/fabe-5541)

~~~
pygy_
Not sure why this is being downvoted, since it appears to be accurate
(searching for "remote sensing agriculture" only yields results about
aerial/satellite imagery), and the linked paper contrasts "remote" (aka
aerial) with "ground-based".

That usage is quite problematic though, because, by using such a broad term
for such a specific application, you lose the ability to use it to describe
other valid "remote sensing " instances such as those implemented by the OP.

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neetdeth
From Wikipedia:

> Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object or
> phenomenon without making physical contact with the object and thus in
> contrast to on-site observation, especially the Earth.

I've encountered the term in other contexts, but always where the object is
remote with respect to the sensor. The applicable term here will be "sensor
networks." The OP describes it as a "remote sensing network", so we all
understand the meaning, but it might be best to substitute another keyword
there like "RF sensor network" to increase search relevance.

~~~
brodouevencode
It’s fair to call out the other definitions, but unfair to downvote.

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xd1936
LoRa is awesome technology, if you haven't yet played with it. Here in West
Michigan, our city's Board of Public Works runs the local power station, which
in turn powers snowmelt heated sidewalks in our downtown area. The employees
are testing homegrown bricks in the sidewalk with little temperature sensors
and LoRa radios that can run for months without needing a recharge, that in
turn report their temperatures back to homebase. Super cool.

[https://www.hollandsentinel.com/news/20180626/new-smart-
bric...](https://www.hollandsentinel.com/news/20180626/new-smart-brick-will-
aid-in-snowmelt-efficiency)

LoRa can be used for all kinds of low-bandwitch medium-range transmission of
data. Temperatures, lat-long, you name it.

~~~
tibu
I'm not that deep involved in LoRa but isn't there a problem with it that by
spamming the network you can take down the whole one with a $3 device?

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tehf0x
This could definitely be an issue, but in my use case I think I'd find the
perp pretty quickly and scare him off with my pitchfork :) . It's important to
space out the messaging, I don't send more frequently than 1msg/minute, and
messages are 8-12 bytes, and most sensors are 1 msg/hour.

~~~
chli
Yes you must respect the band duty cycle ! Check your respective country
regulation.

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staticvar
It would be cool to see this sending data to farmOS running on the Raspberry
Pi. farmOS has a nice graphing and mapping UI for assets on farms and I know
they have it running on some Pi's.

[https://farmos.org/](https://farmos.org/)

~~~
tehf0x
Oh cool, I'll give this a look! I also want to get integration working with
OpenSprinkler in the near future.

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StavrosK
Does anyone know some cheap LoRa radios I can buy? I'd like to play with it,
but so far I only know about the LoPy (expensive but easy to program) and some
no-name radios for which sample code is very hard to come by.

~~~
tehf0x
At the end of the readme I point out the boards I use, namely the adafruit
Lora feather which was the best bang for buck Arduino compatible board, and
the Lora/GPS header for raspi which I would not necessarily recommend anymore,
but that I can say works with this code.

~~~
StavrosK
Oh I missed that, thanks. My local Hackerspace made some boards that have that
LoRa radio and an ESP8266 on them, I might grab some of those as I'm not in
the US and Adafruit won't ship here cheaply, thank you.

~~~
tehf0x
Yeah, that's probably a good bet. I'm in Europe and there are actually a
decent number of European suppliers (or try Mouser, they seems to ship
internationally for free, I have no idea how it works out for them but I got
mine there).

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wiradikusuma
Is there any table/matrix to compare basically "for this use that"? Esp in
terms of range, speed, bandwidth and power consumption (and maybe licensing?)?

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CalRobert
Thanks!! It so happens I'm signing on a house on a few acres Monday and want
to set up remote soil sensors - this seems like just the thing for
coordination.

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Sendotsh
This looks very cool, and I actually have a farm project right now that could
use it.

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chicob
Cool. I think I have some use for this.

