TTN The Things Network​

What is TTN?

TTN The Things Network or also known as TTS The Things Stack is a collaborative project of free communications that today is very popular is the TTN (The Things Network) project that uses the LORA communications system. I make comparisons so that we all understand it better… TTN would be the operator (it’s like saying Movistar or Orange) and LORA is the technology (it would be, for example, saying 3G, 4G). So now that we understand the similarities, we could say that “the TTN company offers us internet via LORA throughout Europe for free”. But to better understand this statement, let’s start with the beginning of all this…

The history of the NTT

A few years ago, in 2015, the world’s first TTN antennas were erected in Amsterdam. A couple of young people imagined that they could create a free, open and decentralized communications network. In just 4 weeks, they placed the first 10 antennas scattered around the city and with just those 10 antennas, they managed to cover the entire city of Amsterdam with the LORA signal and start using it in geolocation projects for bicycles, boats, etc… After A few years ago, in Amsterdam, we had hundreds of sensors placed throughout the city connected to this network, measuring water consumption, temperatures, lighting, etc.

TTN coverage

LORA has a great coverage range, each antenna (known as Gateways) has a coverage of up to 15 km in urban areas (it allows to cover large areas with very few antennas), a low bandwidth (It would not allow us to watch YouTube but it is enough for its purpose of working with sensors) and consumes low power (which allows us to have communication with a mobile battery for more than 5 years).

Seeing that this project was a reality and that it had multiple uses, more cities in the area of ​​Belgium and the Netherlands began to implement this system of antennas and they covered almost 100% of the territory. This movement began to spread throughout all countries and more and more people voluntarily began to set up their own gateways and their own sensorization projects. Recently (about 2018) large coverage areas began to be created in Spain (Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Zaragoza, Valencia…)

And it has been spreading more and more. Today we do not reach the levels of Belgium and the Netherlands, but there is more and more coverage available in our country.

In addition to the communications technology, TTN has developed the server part, building the entire backend of the network that supports the gateways distributed around the globe. This backend is the one that deals with message duplication, download message orchestration, platform integration management, etc.

With this increasingly wide coverage system and a minimum level of energy consumption, we could consider livestock monitoring projects with GPS that send us the position through TTN and the batteries would last for more than a year. We could think of monitoring hundreds of meters of plantations without paying connection fees for each of their devices, etc…

Thanks to this type of networks and TTN (The Things Network) contributors, the network of things allows us to sensorize hundreds of sites that would have a high cost with traditional systems, including industrial systems, agriculture, etc…

Personal projects with TTN

To give examples of my day to day both at home and professional level:

Professional: In the company where I work, we have temperature and humidity control in the facilities through sensors with LORA technology. Thanks to this technology we can monitor all our sensors without the need for cables and obtain this data in a massive and continuous way. We could have generated private LORA coverage for our own sensors, but thought we’d share it and join the TTN network. In such a way that our coverage antennas join the national TTN network and thus we achieve greater coverage and that all the companies neighboring us have a free TTN signal in case they wish to start a sensorization project.

Domestic : I have placed some GPS, humidity and temperature sensors in my car. Thanks to the fact that the batteries last a long time, I always have the position and speed of my car on my mobile, as well as the humidity and temperature of the passenger compartment, and all this without paying monthly fees to the communications operators. In addition, how could it be otherwise, since I use TTN antennas wherever I go with my vehicle, I did not want to stop contributing to the TTN community and I have placed a couple of antennas (GATEWAYS) on the roof of my house thus helping further expand this coverage network.

Start your project

Now that you know TTN, do you already have a project in mind with this coverage?

First start with the web https://ttnmapper.org/ where you can check if there is coverage of this type in your area and if it does not exist, you know that you can generate it yourself and share it with all your locality.