Outdoor IoT Hardware

[RoganFPS]

I'm wondering if anyone could help me/point me in the right direction. I'm wanting to dip my toe in to some IoT hardware. I want to build something I can stick in my garden on a field that can attach things like soil moisture sensors, enviroment sensors, small cameras and maybe GPS. Low power stuff ideally and anything I can make run in a deep sleep, so it sips its power supply. I want it to be able to communicate over long distance too, with LoRa or an equivalent protocol with good/deployable coverage, so probably not mobile network stuff. I know, I'm not asking much! Also if it could all cost under a tenner that would be great.

I've got a few ideas/options so far. The ESP32/8266 stuff or the Raspberry Pi Pico but I'm not sure what's best to focus my attention on as there is just so much to choose from. Also is there something hidden I should be looking at, an Arduino or something?

Cheers

[Trying_to_learn]

Hi.

The power will be the biggest problem.
Solar cells and a battery for starters.

Why GPS?
I get that these will be remote devices, but you PUT them somewhere.
So each unit has a unique identifier that it sends with the message.
Then you associate the ID with the device and you know where you put the device.

I'd not use a RasPi as they would use more power for little gain - well, my thoughts.

If you use LoRa, that is a different module, you won't need the WiFi, so the 8266 is not needed for the WiFi - if that is why you picked that one.

Also an 8266 (or equivalent) will be faster booting if there is a power failure, and would be more resilient to power cuts.

[bakman2]

You are not the first one that wants something like this. I found a lora based moisture sensor, they indicate it runs for 2 years on 2 AAA batteries.

[RoganFPS]

Thanks for the reply bud. The pipe dream is also building a platform with these little devices to display the data quickly.

I'd like to do it in an Open-source hardware sort of thing. e.g. This is what hardware you need and stick this software library on it and it will auto connect to OnlyGardens platform and you can connect 5 sensors for free, but the rest are charged. Gardens as a service if you will So, the GPS would just to be used to track them in essence.