Hi everyone,
I am currently designing a custom LoRa gateway hardware platform intended to connect multiple remote weather stations. For this project, I am evaluating the possibility of using the RAK5146 together with an ESP32-P4 as the host MCU over SPI.
I would like to know if anyone here has experience using the RAK5146 with a non-Linux embedded host, particularly with microcontroller-based systems instead of SBCs like Raspberry Pi or similar Linux platforms.
I am especially interested in understanding:
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Whether RAK provides any HAL adaptations, firmware examples, or reference implementations for bare-metal/RTOS environments.
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If using an ESP32-P4 as the host processor is a realistic approach for a reliable LoRaWAN gateway.
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What limitations or trade-offs should be expected compared to a Linux-based gateway design.
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Which features or gateway capabilities could be affected, such as:
- multi-channel performance
- timestamping/timing accuracy
- downlink scheduling
- LoRaWAN compatibility/compliance
- packet forwarding reliability
Any recommendations, experiences, or design advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks guys