Semtech Packet Radio

Dragino Lora/GPS HAT

Dragino Lora/GPS HAT GPS module

Dragino Lora/GPS HAT LoRa module

Dragino LoRa Shield for Arduino

Dragino LoRa Shield for Arduino LoRa module

Semtech design and manufacture packet radio ICs. Some of their designs may also be manufactured by HopeRF.

ICs

Two product lines exist, one for sensors which are very low power and one for radio gateways which is where the sensors communicate and have packet data forwarded.

Sensor Radio

Various semtech radio ICs exist along with the HopeRF clones. NB Cheap sensor radios can use the RF69 IC which is not LoRa compatible.

Semtech HopeRF IC/RFM FSK kbps LoRa gen LoRa kbps Frequency MHz Market
SX1231 RF69/RFM69 300 N/A N/A 433, 868 & 915
SX1272 RF92/RFM92W 300 1 0.3 - 40 862 - 1020 NA/EU
SX1273 300 1 1.7 - 40 862 - 1020
SX1276 RF96/RFM95W 300 1 0.018 - 40 137 - 1020 GLOBAL
SX1277 300 1 1.7 - 40 137 - 1020
SX1278 RF98/RFM98W 300 1 0.018 - 40 137 - 525 CN
SX1279 300 1 0.018 - 40 137 - 960
SX1261 300 2 0.018 - 62.5 150 - 960
SX1262 300 2 0.018 - 62.5 150 - 960
SX1268 300 2 0.018 - 62.5 410 - 810 CN

LoRa gen 2 chips have a simpler register API compared to gen 1 and use less power.

HopeRF RFM Frequency MHz LoRa kbps
RFM95W 868, 915 .293 - 37.5
RFM96W/RFM98W 433, 470 .1465 - 37.5
RFM98W 169 .07324 - 9.375

HopeRF RF modules are named RFM and the ICs named RF. NB RFM95 contains an RF96 IC.

Gateway

Only Semtech manufacture gateway devices and subsequently they are very high priced and devices containing them are also hard to get (June 2021).

Semtech Type
SX1301 Macro Cell
SX1308 Pico cell
SX1257 Frontend

Modules

Two types of module exist using Semtech/HopeRF ICs. Ones that interface directly to the IC and expose the native SPI bus or others that include a microcontroller with a UART interface which provides a high level API.

SPI modules

SPI modules interface directly to the IC and can be multi-purpose or for the Arduino, RPi, etc.

IC or RFM Product Platform Features Data-sheet
SX1276/SX1278 Dragino LoRa/GPS HAT RPi MT3339 GPS and temperature Dragino Lora/GPS HAT
SX1276 Dragino LoRa Shield Arduino 3v3/5v compatible Dragino LoRa Shield for Arduino
RFM95W Adafruit LoRa Radio Bonnet with OLED RPi 128×32 display N/A
UART modules

UART modules contain an intelligent controller and use a high level API. The API may mimic the HAYES AT modem command set or be original.

Resources

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