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project discussion

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Hi,
I am in the planning stages of a LoRa project to read soil moisture and basic environmental variables on a farm.
From what I understand, I can only use one sensor device with the 1-channel gateway (?).
But would I then also be able to use multiple sensors with the 1-channel gateway if I used Real-Time Clocks (RTC) on the multiple sensors transmit boards each sending at different times, to ensure there were no transmission collisions?
Or would something else be a better option?
Thanks.

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Remember I take it you have done some research. So a timed approach is one thing but consider that each device has some unique ID that it YELLS OUT along with the data. Then it doesn’t matter since about the worst that can happen is two devices scramble their transmission but later it can make another attempt so no big deal on systems that can lose a report and still perform well.

As to the RTC that’s a PITA as now you have to set the time on each unit. Even with some hundred sensors with them sending in a report once a hour if they simply send in “Hey, I’m sensor 5 and here is my data” every hour, even with some losses you get all the sensors read over the day. No RTC is really needed when you have a system that doesn’t need to always get a reading every hour.

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