RAK 2245 Pi Hat not Connecting to Helium APP

Issue: The Helium App does not find my RAK Helium Hoptspot.

Setup:
I installed everything according to Fomis manual:


Packetforwarder is running well an receiveng packets.
How to enable connection to the Helium APP?

Server: RPI 3B+

Details:

Hi Simzik,

This configuration is not supported by the Helium app or for mining HNT. This is just the gateway side.

For the product which supports mining and the app please look at our RAK Hotspot Miner:

Say what?

The asker has a pi and a LoRa concentrator card and a software repo from RAK literally titled “RAK2245_for_helium”

Your link is to a pi and a LoRa concentrator card and presumably software intended for this purpose.

So what is the difference???

Is there another software component they need?

Probaly this is the missing part:

Even running the miner as above Helium doesn’t currently reward gateways which have not been provisioned with their key. You’ll be able to forward data to the network but will not been seen on the blockchain or get any HNT rewards.

Only the RAK Hotspot Miner contains the proper certificates to enable joining the Helium blockchain and earn rewards.

Hi Jose,

thank you for your fast answer. I was already spending quite some time on debugging.
For me it is not clear then, why a firmware for RPI 3B+ in Combination with RAK 2245 is provided by RAK if it cant be used.

Anyway it would be benefitial for the Helium Network if it was possible to join using 3rd party hardware. I have a RAK831 a RAK 2245 and a RAK 7249 left, that i would like to connect.
If the Firmware for the RAK Hotspot Miner was available i could port it to the other Hardware.

So i have four questions ?
Is every RAK Helium Miner provisioned with a unique certificate issued by Helium?
Is it possible to request a certificate for 3rd party gateways?
Is there a service running on the RAK Miner, that is responsible for establishing a bluetooth conneciton for 5 Minutes to connect to the app?
Is this service available for me :wink:

Best regards and thanks for the help

Simon

Hi Simon,

Because of the rewards system joining the Helium blockchain requires certified gateways. For a brief period Helium trialled opening to everyone but this was option was closed due to abuse.

RAK Hotspot Miner is the only certified option.

The Bluetooth service is primarily for blockchain operations so again this is only relevant for the RAK Hotspot Miner.

Should this change in the future we’ll of course offer an option for our users to join the blockchain using our other devices.

If you wish to join Helium without being on the blockchain and without earning rewards as a so called DIY gateway I suggest our repo + miner instructions or Balena image https://github.com/balena-io-playground/helium

Hope this helps.

Then don’t call it open-source!!!

So to be clear, let’s not call this decentralized, open source blabla.

It’s as if I wanted to mine ethereum on my GPU but I’d have to ask Vitalik for some certificate. And he’d tell me well sorry you can’t just buy any gpu and mine, you need to buy our pre-built rigs! It’s the same as if you’d put it together but it got our certificates.

This shows a centralized point of control here which is making the system fragile.

Let’s fork this into a truly open-source network even if it means less rewards, but it will create an anti-fragile network with no centralized control that will one day have the ability to take down telecom giants.

1 Like

Hello,

Could I obtain a certificate to use on my Raspberry Pi setup?

Thanks

Hei @fse5947 ,

This is not possible. The only way right now to join Helium and mine HNT (participate in challenges) is to buy a certified Hotspot from RAKwireless, or any of the other companies that offer them.

Regards
Vladislav

Hello there - would you consider chatting with me offline?

I have similar questions as this user, but would like to get more in depth.

Thanks in advance for your consideration :slight_smile:

Hey there.
This documentation from Helium covers it well

If you still have questions after reading it let me know. I think it’s better if we keep the questions here rather than offline to help other users as well.

Thanks

1 Like

Hello Jose!

I actually wanted to discuss some outside consulting and work with you directly.

I’m in a tight spot right now, and could really use some help from somebody who is deeply knowledgeable.

Thanks so much and talk to you soon,

Mike

[email protected]