Context & Motivation
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An engineer in Duivendrecht, near Amsterdam, wanted safe outdoor roaming for his cat Escobar.
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Commercial trackers (Invoxia, Findster, Tractive, AirTags) failed due to poor coverage, high SIM fees, sluggish updates, or excessive bulk.
Chosen solution
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LoRaWAN + TTN gateway
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Deployed indoor TTN LoRaWAN gateway (~€70), extended range via external antenna setup (Aurel GP‑868 + cable)
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Tracker hardware
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Selected BroWAN Object Locator: 28 g, 540 mAh battery, movement-activated, ~8–10 hr life at 1 min intervals, 1 km range.
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Cat harness modified with Velcro pockets to hold BroWAN, Findster (backup), Tile (local buzzer)
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Functionality & pros/cons
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LoRa sends ~50 bytes uplink per minute with GPS & battery data; TTN gateway forwards via console/API
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Lacked buzzer in BroWAN; Findster & Tile added to assist locating when nearby
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Setup supports low-cost transmissions over community TTN mesh with no SIM fees.
Software stack
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TTN console configures device/app and byte parser.
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HTTP integration pushes data to custom backend (Scala + TypeScript).
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Real-time route tracking via websockets in browser