Farmon

Monitor your farm. From far. Farm on!

LoRaWAN-based farm monitoring with long-range sensors and local data processing.

Architecture

┌─────────────────┐      LoRaWAN       ┌─────────────────┐
│  Heltec Sensors │ ──────────────────►│  SX1302 Gateway │
└─────────────────┘                    └────────┬────────┘
                                                │
                                       ┌────────▼────────┐
                                       │  Raspberry Pi   │
                                       │  ┌───────────┐  │
                                       │  │ ChirpStack│  │ LoRaWAN Server
                                       │  │ Node-RED  │  │ Data Pipeline
                                       │  │ PostgreSQL│  │ Storage
                                       │  └───────────┘  │
                                       └────────┬────────┘
                                                │ Tailscale
                                       ┌────────▼────────┐
                                       │  Remote Access  │
                                       └─────────────────┘

→ docs/ARCHITECTURE.md — data flow, scheduler. docs/FIRMWARE_ARCHITECTURE.md — firmware layers (lib, integrations, devices).

Setup Guide

Step 1: Set Up the Gateway

Install the Raspberry Pi infrastructure and gateway hardware.

# On a fresh Raspberry Pi
curl -sSL https://github.com/kisinga/farmon/raw/main/pi/setup_farm_pi.sh | bash

# Then install the SX1302 HAT
sudo bash ~/farm/pi/setup_gateway.sh

→ Full details: pi/README.md

Verify: Open ChirpStack at http://<pi-ip>:8080 — gateway should appear under Gateways.

Step 2: Configure ChirpStack

Create the device profile and application (one-time setup). → Full details: pi/README.md#registering-devices

Step 3: Deploy Sensors

For each Heltec device:

1. Get DevEUI: Flash firmware, check serial output for DevEUI: XX:XX:...
2. Register in ChirpStack: Applications → farm-sensors → Add device → paste DevEUI
3. Get AppKey: Device → OTAA keys → Generate → copy the hex string
4. Configure & Flash:

   cd heltec
   cp secrets.example.h secrets.h
   # Edit secrets.h with your AppKey
   ./heltec.sh flash

→ Full details: heltec/README.md

Verify: Serial shows "joined", ChirpStack shows uplink frames, Node-RED debug shows data.

Services

Service	URL	Login
ChirpStack	http://<pi>:8080	admin / admin
Node-RED	http://<pi>:1880	—

Project Structure

farmon/
├── pi/          # Gateway stack (ChirpStack, Node-RED, PostgreSQL)
└── heltec/      # Sensor firmware (Heltec ESP32 LoRaWAN)

Troubleshooting

Problem	Check
Gateway not appearing	sudo journalctl -fu chirpstack-concentratord
Device not joining	AppKey exact match? Region matches gateway?
No data in Node-RED	MQTT broker connected? (green status)
No data in database	Check Node-RED debug panel for errors