LoRa

LoRa is a radio technology made by Semtech that sends small messages over long distances on very little power. It is the radio underneath LoRaWAN, the open network standard used by community networks such as The Things Network, and some smart home brands, YoLink among them, run their own protocol on LoRa radios.

Strengths

• Long range. A single gateway or hub can reach sensors in basements, garages and outbuildings that are hard to cover with Wi-Fi or a mesh.
• Low power. Battery devices send short messages and sleep in between, so batteries last a long time.

Trade-offs

• No LoRa radio on the Selora Hub. Selora does not supply a LoRa dongle or antenna, so the Selora Hub never talks to LoRa devices directly.
• A hub or network in between. Each LoRa device reaches Home Assistant through the system it was built for: the maker’s own hub, or a LoRaWAN network and its gateway.
• Brands do not mix. A brand’s own LoRa protocol only works with that brand’s hub, so it adds a second system to the house.

LoRa in Home Assistant

How a LoRa device appears in Home Assistant depends on the system behind it:

• YoLink devices pair with a YoLink hub. Home Assistant’s built-in YoLink integration connects through the YoLink cloud, so it cannot reach them while the internet is down.
• LoRaWAN devices registered on The Things Network come in through the The Things Network integration, which also reads from the cloud.