Configuring your gateways to send beacons to class B devices

If you onboard class B wireless devices to AWS IoT Core for LoRaWAN, the devices receive downlink messages in scheduled time slots. The devices open these slots based on time-synchronized beacons that are transmitted by the gateway. For your gateways to transmit these time-synchronous beacons, you can use AWS IoT Core for LoRaWAN to configure certain beaconing-related parameters for the gateways.

To configure these beaconing parameters, your gateway must be running LoRa Basics Station software version 2.0.6. See Using qualified gateways from the AWS Partner Device Catalog.

How to configure the beaconing parameters

You configure the beaconing parameters when adding your gateway to AWS IoT Core for LoRaWAN using the CreateWirelessGateway API operation. When you invoke the API operation, specify the following parameters using the Beaconing object for your gateways. After you configure the parameters, the gateways will send the beacons to your devices at a 128-second interval.

The following example shows how you configure these parameters for the gateway. The input.json file will contain additional details, such as the gateway certificate and provisioning credentials. For more information about adding your gateway to AWS IoT Core for LoRaWAN using the CreateWirelessGateway API operation, see Add a gateway by using the API.

aws iotwireless create-wireless-gateway \
    --name "myLoRaWANGateway" \        
    --cli-input-json file://input.json

The following shows the contents of the input.json file.

Contents of input.json

{ 
    "Description": "My LoRaWAN gateway",
    "LoRaWAN": {
        "Beaconing": { 
          "DataRate": 8,
          "Frequencies": [923300000,923900000]
        },
        "GatewayEui": "a1b2c3d4567890ab",
        "RfRegion": US915, 
        "JoinEuiFilters": [ 
         ["0000000000000001", "00000000000000ff"], 
         ["000000000000ff00", "000000000000ffff"] 
         ], 
        "NetIdFilters": ["000000", "000001"], 
        "RfRegion": "US915", 
        "SubBands": [2] 
    }     
}

The following code shows a sample output of running this command.

{
    "Arn": "arn:aws:iotwireless:us-east-1:400232685877aa:WirelessGateway/a01b2c34-d44e-567f-abcd-0123e445663a",
    "Id": a01b2c34-d44e-567f-abcd-0123e445663a"
}

Get information about the beaconing parameters

You can get information about the beaconing parameters for your gateway using the GetWirelessGateway API operation.

aws iotwireless get-wireless-gateway \
    --identifier "12345678-a1b2-3c45-67d8-e90fa1b2c34d" \
    --identifier-type WirelessGatewayId

Running this command returns information about your gateway and the beaconing parameters.