Overview

Helium has created a LoRa network that is connected to a blockchain network. The blockchain uses peer to peer message transmission, using miners which hash and validate messages. Letting these gateways run and perform this mining and validating of messages earns users helium coins.

Hardware Overview

Gateways

In the past Helium had set up their own gateway, but they have abandoned that and are currently using the RAK Pilot gateway. The RAK gateway is essentially a Raspberry Pi which handles mining, LoR and network transmissions.

Open

Open

Cloud Mining (Future)

Helium is also currently working on a Cloud miner. The idea here is that people can use whatever LoRa gateway they want and a Virtual Machine instance that handles the mining. You would then point the gateway at the VM and then once mined the VM would forward the messages to the network (e.g. Helium’s network, but could also theoretically be TTN or another).

Sensors and Connectivity troubleshooting

Currently the Helium network is a bit of the old wild west in terms of public coverage. For ensuring proper functionality and coverage we recommend customers use their own hotspots and not rely on using public hotspots. If the customer wants to not own hotspots and rely on public ones, they must do their own diligence to verify that the coverage and experience will be acceptable for their solution.

Data Credits

Helium makes money by charging for the amount of messages that gets transmitted. This is paid for by us by purchasing Data Credits. This is like prepaying for a phone data plan. If we ever run out of Credits, this could result in failed message delivery. So this is one area where if we’re seeing troubles we should remember to verify we still have adequate monthly credits. This can be done from in the Helium console.