How a Lion Protection Project in Botswana Inspired the Gateway Mesh Solution

Sometimes, fate works in amazing ways. I’ve always believed that to truly understand customer challenges, you need to see things firsthand. It’s why I’ve spent countless hours traveling to meet with customers, discussing their pain points, and planning better resources and roadmaps.

One consistent theme I’ve heard in almost every conversation is the challenge of network connectivity. “We can’t get full coverage” they’d say. Whether it’s a sprawling farm in Australia or a multi-floor factory building, the common issue is the same: no cellular signal, no reliable way to connect all their gateways into a cohesive network. My own site survey in the Australian outback, where cellular coverage was practically non-existent, echoes this.

At the time, customers were looking for solutions similar to Wi-Fi mesh repeaters but for LoRaWAN^®—something to extend their network without the burden of expensive cellular data plans for each gateway. During a large farm deployment, we also saw them using Wi-Fi 6 Mesh for communication between towers. However, Wi-Fi’s high bandwidth was overkill for the application, and it required larger batteries for the solar system, making it neither green nor cost-effective.

This sparked the idea of a LoRa-based repeater, or LoRa Mesh. We needed a scalable, efficient solution that could help our customers expand their networks affordably. And with that, a new chapter began.

We initially considered using Wi-Fi Halow, a mature protocol, but we ran into interference issues, especially in regions like the U.S., where the spectrum overlaps with LoRaWAN. The results of our experiments weren’t ideal.

That’s when we decided to take a different route: developing our own protocol, leveraging 2.4 GHz LoRa. However, this wasn’t something we could do alone. We needed a senior partner for LoRa network server development. Our goal was clear—we didn’t want to create a proprietary protocol. We wanted something open, something that would work with all existing LoRaWAN nodes, and, most importantly, something that would solve our customers’ problems.

Enter Orne and Tim: Fate, LoRa, and Lions in Botswana.

In one of those serendipitous moments, Orne Brocaar from ChirpStack and Tim van Dam from Smart Parks reached out to me. "Sometimes fate is really amazing," I thought. They shared a story that piqued my interest immediately. Tim had been working with a desert lion conservation organization in Botswana to help protect endangered species using LoRaWAN trackers. The challenge was strikingly similar to the ones we had been hearing: remote areas with no network connectivity and very limited access to electricity.

Tim’s use case involved setting up private LoRaWAN networks, usually with 2 to 10 gateways, to monitor wildlife like rhinos and lions. These areas had a low number of devices but needed wide coverage. Building more towers or adding costly infrastructure just wasn’t an option. He needed a way to extend coverage without disrupting the existing LoRaWAN setup.

The standard LoRa Alliance Relay specification wasn’t a good fit either because it required specific support from the end devices, which many of Tim’s existing deployed trackers didn’t have. That’s when we had an idea: what if we could develop a solution on the gateway level? A Relay feature built directly into the gateway without modifying the network server or end devices.

With Orne Brocaar’s active involvement, the LoRa Network Server challenge was no longer a serious obstacle. We started brainstorming about a gateway-to-gateway communication protocol—an idea that evolved into the Gateway Mesh Solution.

A Collaborative Effort: The Spirit of Open Source

Orne and Tim’s involvement brought us closer to our goal just when we needed it. The vision was simple: develop an open-source protocol that could be adopted by any vendor—gateway manufacturers, proprietary LNS developers, and more. The aim was to make the technology accessible, enhance it through community collaboration, and maximize its impact across the LoRaWAN ecosystem rather than keeping it locked away.

RAKwireless sponsored the project, and Orne began development. Meanwhile, Tim started field experiments in Botswana, deploying the protocol in the African plains to monitor endangered lions and rhinos. From November 2023 to October 2024, we worked tirelessly, refining the protocol and testing it in real-world conditions.

Thanks to Xose Pérez, a product owner at RAKwireless, for his deep involvement with Orne, we completed the development and successfully launched the Gateway Mesh protocol.

But let me be clear—this is just the beginning.

We still have a lot of work ahead, and we need your feedback, contributions, and ideas to make this protocol even better.

Join Us on This Journey

The Gateway Mesh Solution has the potential to transform LoRaWAN deployments, providing network coverage where it was previously impossible. With your help, we can refine the protocol and expand its capabilities, making it the standard for multi-hop LoRaWAN networks.

Together, we can build something truly revolutionary. Are you ready to join us?