Thats a totally awesome question! LoRa networks are similar to Wi-Fi or your cell signal! But unlike Wi-Fi, they are able to send data at pretty decent ranges! Like all radio signals, there are some limitations, namely terrain, elevation, and even atmospheric conditions, but the technology is pretty neat! LoRa is an open source protocol. This means that anyone can make a board that uses it, anyone can build applications for it, and you can deploy it for next to nothing, aside from purchasing hardware! LoRa also has a dedicated frequency space, so you dont need any specialization to deploy a LoRa network either! The frequency changes from region to region, so as not to disrupt already existing reserved frequency spaces, so those frequencies are as follows:
Europe: 863-870 MHz, and 873 MHz
North America: 902-928 MHz
South America: 915-928 MHz
India: 865-867 MHz
Asia: 915-928 MHz
Well strawman reader that I have made up in my own dog riddled imagination for the purposes of explaining this super neat technology, I am so barking glad you asked! The simple answer is: ITS SO COOL! But a more practical answer is that it has some amazing applications! For example, even though the technology has super low bandwidth (super fun reason for that!), it can still be really useful! Say you are a camper, hiker, avid outdoors person.. or maybe even just a humble country dog like I used to be! Cell reception is spotty at best, and its possible that you may go a significant amount of your day without the ability to really use a cellphone outside of native applications that dont require any form of internet connection to run. But with a LoRa network, you can carry a mesh node on your person, or even turn your phone into one, and have the ability to talk to every other device on that network! How cool is that?! What I am basically describing is a cell network that requires zero phone plan, is controlled by you, and is customizable AND scalable to fit your needs! There are also a ton of other benefits and applications! For example, industrial sites are using LoRa technology as a way to link all of their smart devices together! Using LoRa networks, they have created a mesh IoT network! They then send all that data to a thing called a LoRa gateway, which allows them to process the data, and give detailed minute by minute reports of the status of whatever they are measuring!
You can get the hardware pretty cheap, assuming you are willing to wait a while for shipping. There are a few different brands, but the one that I will be ordering from is Lilly-Go. Why? They honestly seem the most willing and ready to innovate in this department. They have LoRa network cards, yes. But they also have the T-Deck, which is basically a LoRa enabled hand held computer that they invision as being used for on the go diagnostics of LoRa networks and programming. It comes with a super duper cute little keyboard that I would NOT want to program on (it looks like PAIN), but its still cool! My overall plan is to use one as a cellphone like device for texting and the like! But they have other super cool products as well, like a LoRa enabled smart watch! And have I mentioned that all their stuff is open source? Thats right! You too can get your grubby little paws all over the code and build whatever applications and software your little heart can dream of! How neat!
Link to their website can be found here!