I am trying to get my hands on Morse Micro MM8108-EKH05-01 Wi-Fi® HaLow® IoT Evaluation Kit from Mouser but they cancelled my order saying the RF frequency is not suitable for testing in India. The Indian Non-licensed frequency needs to be 865Khz and the Evaluation kit is for 915Khz. Do you provide an evaluation kit with EU-868 frequency or is this same kit capable of working in both 916 and 868 range?
Also can I get 2 of this Eval kit and use one as access point and other as halo station or Do I need to get a different device to setup the Access point?
Hi @Aquib
Our MM8108 evaluation kits do have the capability to operate at EU frequencies. Because these evaluation kits are suited for a range of frequency bands, rather than region specific end products, Mouser requires that the purchase is made from a business account/email address, rather than a personal one.
While our 2.9.7 release of the mm-iot-sdk on GitHub will allow you to bring up a station on the EKH05, that feature is very much a beta for our microcontroller platforms, and that hardware has no other interface suitable for backhaul - so I don’t think this would suit your system requirements. Our Linux based evaluation kit, the MM8108-EKH19 is a much more appropriate access point at this stage.
Hi @ajudge , thanks for the detailed clarification.
I had a follow-up question regarding deployment: some people have mentioned that Morse Micro’s Wi-Fi HaLow is only point-to-point. From the documentation it looks like it supports full Wi-Fi networking (AP + multiple clients), but I’d like to confirm whether the AP feature in the MM8108 evaluation kits provides the required range for multi-device scenarios.
We are planning to deploy multiple camera devices at site connected to single gateway device.
Could you share any guidance or best practices on expected range when operating in AP mode, especially compared to point-to-point setups?
Thanks again for the support.
That’s interesting, who has been suggesting this?
Yes, this is accurate
. There shouldn’t be any issues with regard to the protocol for multiple devices at range. The antennas our devices ship with are omnidirectional ![]()
This will come primarily to the antenna being used, but you’ll also want to consider the impact of the hidden node problem if you are placing client devices at the very edge of the access points range. RTS/CTS as per standard Wi-Fi works in the same way for Wi-Fi HaLow ![]()
Note that range is very dependent on the environment you’re operating in. Antenna height plays a big factor. What’s the size of the site?
@ajudge Thank you for the support! I really appreciate the guidance. I have a few questions:
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To achieve the extended range with Morse Micro, do both the router and the end device need to have Morse Micro chips?
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Can standard Wi-Fi devices also connect to a Morse Micro-based router, or is it limited to devices with Morse Micro chips?
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We also intend to connect non-Wi-Fi HaLow devices to the router—what options or configurations would you recommend for that?
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Could you suggest a suitable router for deployment in a site that spans about 8 sq. km of woodlands and undulating mountainous terrain? The expected range between the router and the device (and soon for streaming) would be around 3 km
To achieve the extended range, both devices will need a Wi-Fi HaLow radio. If both devices are Wi-Fi HaLow standards compliant, it shouldn’t matter who the chip vendor is. In practice, there could be differences in how the software driving the chips determines the rate at which to transmit, which may impact bit/packet error rates at range, and so for that reason I would recommend Morse Micro’s chip ![]()
The MM8108-EKH19 kit I suggested above has 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi radios available. Other devices could connect to these radios instead. To leverage the range of Wi-Fi HaLow, the other devices would need a standards compatible Wi-Fi HaLow chip.
The HaLowLink2 will be available soon, which has both Wi-Fi HaLow and 2.4 GHz built in.
The MM8108-EKH05 does not have any additional Wi-Fi radios on board. It does have bluetooth though.
Make sure the router you are deciding to use has support for the radios of the devices you want to connect. The MM8108-EKH19 should be very functional for what you need. If you can use 2.4 and HaLow, the HaLowLink2 would also be a suitable choice.
If this is a permanent deployment, you probably want to consider waiting for the HaLowLink2.
However, I would strongly recommend getting some MM8108-EKH19s first though to run experiments on the site. The terrain and forestry means you would want to perform a survey of the site to determine the best place to install devices to ensure coverage of the site. 8 sqkm is achievable, but it will depend on the terrain, antenna placement, noise in the environment etc. You might want to consider some of the mesh options as well to traverse the terrain.
What are Mesh options? Could you share where I can find info about the Meshing capabilities.