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I would like to try a Lorowan network to monitor a few things around the farm like temperature in buildings, location of vehicles, quantities in tanks etc. Sorting the hardware side doesn't seem too problematic (though advice on gateway & sensor makes to choose/avoid would be useful). However, I understand in order to work I would need access to a dedicated server to act as the hub for all my IoTs data before I can get it back via some form of app/PC monitoring software. Seems there are several free server options out there for personal use (eg. LORIOT, ThingPark, etc) and it is these providers I am after information on. Has anyone any experience with any of this and if so who did you use.
This any good to you?
https://www.chirpstack.io/docs/getting-started/raspberry-pi.html
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just about anything can run on a Pi (or so it seems).
You could use Shelly relays with their Lora add-on.
No need for a server at all then.
I do not no much about Lorawan but have been playing about with Cisco Meraki sensors. They can use MQTT to send sensor readings and I used a free on-line MQTT broker and then wrote a Python script to subscribe to the published topics. If your setup uses MQTT you could try that rather than having your own server.
I used https://www.hivemq.com/mqtt/public-mqtt-broker/
It depends what you want to do with it,
I think there are perhaps 2 parts of this, setting up the lowran network for the sensors, and then the server side for presenting the information to you.
For the 2nd part of that I would consider "home assistant" on maybe a low spec nuc for a server, that would allow you to build dashboards for the information you want, send alerts to your phone, graph historical data etc. With that you would have an mqtt broker to connect to the lowran. But it is a steep learning curve, especially if you are not IT savvy, but would probably create a really useable solution once you get into it.
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Didn't we already have a thread on this 😃 Anyway, since the last one, two notable developments:
Shelly LoRa add-on is now available (not got any but sounds easy enough to use for long-range control of a relay or simple on/off monitoring of a sensor - more advanced sensor use e.g. returning a reading should be possible but doesn't look so simple at this stage)
Home Assistant ZWA-2 long range Z-wave antennae has just been released (I have one but not got a chance to play with it yet!) Apparently giving up to 1.5 mile range outdoors with any Z-Wave LR compatible device - only recently certified for EU/UK use so not loads of devices available yet although Shelly make a few already.
Another option which I wouldn't discount if you have line-of-sight and only 1 or 2 additional sites is point-to-point WiFi using directional antennas e.g. Unifi.
Would definitely recommend Home Assistant as the "hub" and to tie everything together, it's really easy to setup & use these days, plus there's a few of us on here using it (and loads of other help available!)