Early development

DongLoRa is a tool for building tools. It assumes familiarity with LoRa, serial protocols, and programming. APIs may change. If you're looking for a ready-made mesh device, check out Meshtastic or MeshCore.

DongLoRa

/ˈdɒŋ.ɡəl.ɔːr.ə/ — dongle + LoRa

Protocol-agnostic LoRa over USB.

Plug in. Talk radio.

Flash Your Board

What is it?

Flash firmware onto a LoRa board once and it becomes a dumb USB radio. It doesn't know or care what protocol you're running — it just moves bytes between the air and your computer.

Everything else — routing, encryption, display, response logic — happens in your code, in Python, Rust, or whatever you want — with the feedback loop of a scripting environment instead of a flash-and-pray embedded workflow.

Quick Start

1.

Flash the firmware

Use the web flasher or flash from the command line.
2.
Install a client library
```
pip install donglora
```
3.
Listen for packets
```
import donglora as dl

ser = dl.connect()
dl.send(ser, "SetConfig", config=dl.DEFAULT_CONFIG)
dl.send(ser, "StartRx")

while pkt := dl.recv(ser):
    print(f'{pkt["rssi"]:4d}dBm {pkt["snr"]:3d}dB {pkt["payload"].hex()}')
```
```
import donglora as dl

ser = dl.connect()
dl.send(ser, "SetConfig", config=dl.DEFAULT_CONFIG)
dl.send(ser, "StartRx")

while pkt := dl.recv(ser):
    print(f'{pkt["rssi"]:4d}dBm {pkt["snr"]:3d}dB {pkt["payload"].hex()}')
```

What can you do with it?

Connect your code directly to a LoRa radio over USB — or run the multiplexer and let multiple programs share a single dongle at the same time.

your code ──► client lib ──► USB ──► DongLoRa radio

your code ──► client lib ──┐
your code ──► client lib ──┼──► mux ──► USB ──► DongLoRa radio
your code ──► client lib ──┘

Because the firmware is protocol-agnostic, a DongLoRa dongle works with any LoRa network — Meshtastic, MeshCore, custom protocols, or raw packets.

Interact with mesh networks

Send and receive packets on Meshtastic, MeshCore, or any other LoRa protocol from a laptop, desktop, or Raspberry Pi. Write scripts that interact with mesh traffic programmatically.

Build bots and automations

Write a chatbot that receives messages over LoRa and responds via an LLM. Build an alert system. Log every packet on a frequency. All from Python or Rust on a server.

Bridge distant networks

The bridge application connects to local LoRa traffic, encrypts it, and relays it to other bridges over the internet. Two bridges in different cities extend a mesh network's range by thousands of miles.

Prototype without embedded development

Test a LoRa idea in Python in an afternoon. Change frequency, bandwidth, spreading factor — all from your code. Iterate fast. No cross-compilation, no JTAG, no boot loops.

Analyze RF traffic

Sniff, decode, and log every packet on a frequency. Useful for debugging mesh deployments, understanding channel utilization, or reverse-engineering protocols.

Deploy headless gateways

A Raspberry Pi with a dongle plugged in is a LoRa gateway. Add the mux and you can run multiple services on a single radio — a mesh node, a packet logger, and a bridge, all at once.