MerryIoT Gateway installation

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Laura CARBO

Difficulty: expert

Content

Learning Objectives

After reading this article, you’ll be able to:

  • Prepare your environment to start using MerryIoT Gateway
  • Configure a MerryIoT Gateway

What is MerryIoT Gateway?

MerryIoT Gateway is a LoRa gateway that can be used for any Spacewell LoRa device to connect to the Workplace Platform.

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MerryIoT Gateway connects to an existing (guest) Wifi, a seperate wifi network, or to ethernet.

Info

When using WiFi: Since the data between the sensors and the hub is communicated over LoRa network, we assume the impact of this device on the WiFi network will be max 250MB/hub/month.

Unboxing - content

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  • MerryIoT Gateway
  • ‪ethernet cable
  • power cord
  • ‪DC-Adapter

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Hardware & Network Requirements

MerryIoT Gateways run on 2.4GHz

Open ports 22, 123, 443, 1680 and 1700 in the firewall. These ports only need an outbound connection.

IP Addresses needed for Outgoing traffic

We sync all our hubs to the same open NTP (network time protocol) servers so we have consistent timings in our data warehouse.

How to use below table

  • as mentioned above, ideally just the ports mentioned should be opened (outbound)

Note

We recommend not to use specific IP addresses or DNS destinations in the firewall as they can and probably will change in the future!

  • protocol information and AL descriptions are extra

Depending on the environment main location, Spacewell Workplace tenants are created in an EU- or US-environment. Hence, for some ports to be opened, the destination address might be a different one:

  • eu: spacewell.eu1.cloud.thethings.industries
  • usa: spacewell.nam1.cloud.thethings.industries

Destination

Port

Protocol

Direction

AL description

HTTP/HTTPS, Webhook

80/443

TCP

Outbound

WEBGUI

22

TCP

Inbound/Outbound

SSH

NTP

123

TCP

Outbound

Time Synchronization
  • eu: spacewell.eu1.cloud.thethings.industries
  • usa: spacewell.nam1.cloud.thethings.industries

443

TCP

Outbound

TTI application

1700

UDP

Outbound

Uplink & Downlink Messages

1680

TCP

Outbound

Lora Packet Forwarder

How to Activate the Gateway

Configuration needs to be done on a computer.

Info

Make sure to run through the config settings fairly quickly, else connection will time-out.

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Step 1. Device connection

  1. Plug in the device to power
  2. The device will turn up in the WiFi list on your computer
  3. Connect to the MerryIoT wifi. Use the password that is mentioned on the back of the device
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  1. Connect in the browser to IP 192.168.4.1
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Step 2. LoRa Settings

Info

Gateway ID is visible in this screen

  1. Select “Set LoRa”
  2. Select LoRa Packet Forwarder
  3. Fill the Gateway-Info as in the following picture:

    1. Server address EU: spacewell.eu1.cloud.thethings.industries

    2. Server address Americas: spacewell.nam1.cloud.thethings.industries
  4. Click “Save”
  5. After receiving the “Success” message, go back to the main configuration page

Step 3. Set up Connectivity

Configure connectivity through Ethernet or WiFi, or configure both as a fail-over mechanism in case one of the connectivity types experiences issues:

Ethernet connectivity
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  1. Make sure an ethernet cable, connected to the right network, is plugged in to the gateway
  2. Select “WAN”
  3. In Ethernet Settings, select DHCP
  4. Click on the Save button
  5. The device will reboot and the page will look as if it’s stuck (because of the reboot, the “web service” (in the top right corner) will actually be in status disconnected)
  6. The LED on the device will show

    1. power = on/blue

    2. Ethernet LED blue
    3. LoRa LED blue

WiFi connectivity
image-20230717-144720.png
  1. Make sure to remove any LAN cable; only power supply should be plugged in
  2. Select “Wi-Fi”
  3. All available networks are visible on the config screen
  4. Select the network you want to connect to and provide the password
  5. Click on the Save button
  6. The device will reboot and the page will look as if it’s stuck (because of the reboot, the “web service” (in the top right corner) will actually be in status disconnected)
  7. The LED on the device will show

    1. power = on/blue

    2. WiFi LED blue
    3. LoRa LED blue
image-20230717-144800.png

Ethernet & Wifi - failover mechanism / switching feature

This feature is available from firmware version 1.0.22. See https://onespacewell.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/KB/pages/4357489641/MerryIoT+Gateway+installation#Upgrade-the-firmware-version to check the current firmware version and know when and how to upgrade.

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  1. Make sure an ethernet cable, connected to the right network, is plugged in to the gateway
  2. Select the Dual WAN option
  3. Provide a Connection check address by entering any website URL or IP address for internal network failure status checks. Fill in Connection Check Address 1 as 8.8.8.8. (technically, this could be http://www.google.com, but if there is any mistake in the URL then the failover mechanism won’t work because of the typo)
  4. In DUAL WAN Configuration 1/3, choose the network priority, selecting either Ethernet or WIFI as the first priority. In this workflow, we suggest to select ethernet first
  5. In DUAL WAN Configuration 2/3, select the Ethernet setting as DHCP. Click next and wait for the “successful” message. Click “next”
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 image-20231218-171304.png
  1. In DUAL WAN Configuration 3/3, All available networks are visible on the config screen. Select the network you want to connect to and provide the password. Click on the Save button.
  2. The device will reboot and the page will look as if it’s stuck (because of the reboot, the “web service” (in the top right corner) will actually be in status disconnected)
  3. The LED on the device will show

    1. power = on/blue

    2. Ethernet LED blue (because ethernet connectivity has the priority according to the above workflow)
    3. LoRa LED blue

Info

In case of any issues with the ethernet connectivity, it takes 3-5 minutes for the device to switch to WiFi.

The LED on the device will indicate which connectivity type is being used: either ethernet LED is blue or WiFi LED.

If your configuration was successful (power = on/blue; WiFi or Ethernet LED blue; LoRa LED blue):

  • the device will no longer show up in the WiFi scanning list of your computer,
  • the gateway is connected to the LoRaWAN network and is ready to handle packets.

Your Spacewell Implementation Consultant can confirm if the gateway is connecting to the Workplace platform (see The Things Network (LoRa platform) (SW internal) ).

image-20230717-145358.png

Additional Information

LED Indicators

  • LED Sequence: Power (System), WAN, Wireless, LoRa
  • Connection through WiFi or WAN, the LED colors should always be: 3 blue lights

    • power on LED: blue

    • WiFi or LAN LED: blue
    • LoRa LED: blue
  • Solid LED indicates a static condition, the blinking LED indicates the system is in upgrading status, or activating the device to link to the corresponding ports

Solid On

Blinking

Off

Power System (blue)

Power ON

Booting

(ignore bootloader)

Power Off

WAN (blue)

Ethernet plug & got IP address

Connecting

Unplugged

Wireless (blue)

WiFi station mode & got IP address

Connecting

Wireless disabled

LoRa (blue)

LoRa is working

Connecting

LoRa is not working

Button Actions

There is only one button (Reset Button) on the back: upon Reset, all the configurations will be gone and you have to do all the configuration settings again.

Assigned MAC addresses

The MAC address that is visible for the device on the local network depends on the connection mode.

The MAC address referenced on the back of the device, is the Wi-Fi MAC address.

Interface

MAC address

Wi-Fi station

base_mac

Wi-Fi SoftAP

base_mac, +1 to the last octet

Ethernet

base_mac, +3 to the last octet

Upgrade the firmware version

Info

Only upgrade the firmware version after confirmation by the Spacewell Hardware team.

  1. To check the current firmware version, select Configure OTA mode
  2. To obtain the latest firmware:

    1. configure your device to make sure it’s connected to the internet

    2. enable the OTA Server Daily Check to ensure timely updates.
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Info

The OTA daily check will execute every 24 hours starting from the gateway boot-up. This means you likely will need to wait until the next day to get the latest version update.

Troubleshooting

Steps to troubleshoot an offline device:

  1. Are you sure the correct ports were opened on the network?
  2. Check the LED lights
  3. Check if the gateway is connected to the correct network (on the switch)
  4. Check if there is network connectivity on the patch in the switch (aka: connect the cable of the patch to your pc)
  5. Replace a non-working hub with one that is confirmed working

    1. If the non-working one is connected to the patch of the working one and this works: there is an issue with the patch/switch

    2. If the working one is connected to the patch of the non-working one and this works: there is an issue with the hub

If you don’t recognize the MAC address of the device on the network, refer to the different MAC addresses described above (see https://onespacewell.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/KB/pages/edit-v2/4357489641#Assigned-MAC-addresses).

Hub provisioning

If your hub is not showing up on The Things Network (LoRa platform) (SW internal), make sure to communicate the device EUI to the Spacewell support team.

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