LoRaWAN Integration

One unified webhook endpoint

HydroNode exposes a single webhook URL that auto-detects whether the incoming uplink is from TTN (v3) or ChirpStack (v4/v3). There are no separate endpoints and no per-network configuration.

Before you start

1. 1
   A sensor exists in HydroNode

   Press Create sensor on the Dashboard, give it a name and press Create sensor again. Every account can have 20 sensors for free. The Sensor ID and Secret it shows are for WiFi devices. A LoRaWAN device does not need them.
2. 2
   The sensor is Outdoor

   A LoRaWAN device always becomes a station, and only outdoor sensors can be stations. Pick Outdoor when you create the sensor. For an existing sensor, open Settings, then General, set Environment to Outdoor and save.
3. 3
   The physical DevEUI is at hand

   16 hex characters printed on the device, for example a840411b2182cd44.
4. 4
   You know your payload layout

   Which fPort carries which channels and at which byte offsets (see Decode payloads).

Pick your network server

The steps that differ between networks have their own page: registering the device, the webhook for uplinks and the setup for downlinks.

Bind the device to your sensor

This happens in the HydroNode web app. Open your sensor, press Settings at the top right and open Connection. The LoRaWAN group links the device.

1. 1
   Check that the sensor is Outdoor

   If it is still Indoor, the LoRaWAN group shows a warning with a link to General, and Link device stays disabled. Set the environment to Outdoor there, save, and come back.
2. 2
   Enter the DevEUI

   16 characters, digits and letters a to f. Use the same DevEUI you registered in your network server.
3. 3
   Enter the Application ID

   TTN: the application ID. ChirpStack: the application UUID from the URL. The field is required and must match exactly, otherwise uplinks are rejected as an unknown device.
4. 4
   Press Link device

   HydroNode makes the sensor a station and shows the Webhook address in the same group. The button now reads Save, for later changes, and Unlink appears next to it.
5. 5
   Copy the webhook address

   Press the eye icon to show it, or the copy button to copy it right away. Your profile shows the same address as Webhook URL. You paste it into your network server, as the page for your network server describes.

Once the device is linked, two more parts appear below. Signal quality has the switch Record signal quality: it stores RSSI and SNR of the gateway that heard each uplink best as two more values on the sensor chart. It starts with the next uplink and never shows on the station. Below that sits Payload formats (fPort), see Decode payloads.

Configure fPort decoding

Each fPort carries a fixed set of channels packed into the payload bytes. You tell HydroNode how to read them in the card Payload formats (fPort), at the bottom of Settings, Connection. The card appears once the device is linked. See Sensor Types for the supported types.

1. 1
   Press Add fPort

   Enter the fPort your firmware sends on, 1 to 223, and an optional Description.
2. 2
   Add one channel per value

   Press Add Channel and pick a Sensor Type. The presets fill in bytes, encoding, scale and unit. Adjust Bytes, Encoding, Byte Order, Scale Factor, Offset, Channel Name and Unit if needed. Choose Custom for a type not in the list.
3. 3
   Order the channels

   Channels decode top to bottom with no gaps. Use the up and down arrows so the order matches the bytes your device sends.
4. 4
   Try it before saving

   Test this layout decodes a payload you paste against the fields above, on the server, without saving anything. Copy a real payload from your network server.
5. 5
   Press Create

   Repeat for every fPort your device uses. Edit and Delete sit on each saved fPort. Test a payload below the list checks a payload against all saved fPorts at once.

How a channel is decoded

Every channel reads a fixed number of bytes and turns them into one physical value:

value = raw × scaleFactor + offset

Native payload formats (auto-detected)

No transformation needed. HydroNode reads each network's native JSON and picks the format from its shape: end_device_ids means The Things Stack v3, deviceInfo or a top level devEui means ChirpStack v4. Helium is not a third format; its console runs on ChirpStack and sends the ChirpStack event. Anything else is rejected with 400 rather than guessed at.

Repeat deliveries are recognized by deduplicationId when the network server sends one, and by the frame counter otherwise. If a payload carries neither, deduplication is skipped for that uplink: a duplicate reading can be removed later, a dropped one cannot be recovered.

Sample payloads are on the pages for The Things Network and ChirpStack.

Confirm it works

Send a test uplink: a real transmission, or Simulate uplink on the device page in TTN. Then open the sensor in HydroNode and open its console. Click the Console bar at the bottom of the page or press the backtick key (`). The Live tab lists every uplink your network server delivered, with fPort, frame counter, decoded values, RSSI and SNR. Rejected uplinks show up too, with the reason. Click a line for every detail.

LoRaWAN sensors get more tabs. Decoder shows which bytes became which value. Link shows radio quality, received and lost frames, the spreading factor and frequency mix, airtime against the TTN fair use limit and the gateways that heard the device. Payload builder turns real values into the bytes your firmware must send. Details are in the Device Console docs.

A 202 means the values are stored, not merely received. HydroNode waits for its own storage to confirm them before answering, so a 202 is a real delivery receipt. If storage is unavailable you get 503 instead and your network server should redeliver. Repeated deliveries of the same frame are recognized and stored once, so retrying is always safe.

Send to your devices

HydroNode can also talk back to your LoRaWAN devices: new send intervals and battery thresholds for a station, raw bytes on any fPort, and ready commands for stations. Each downlink waits at your network server and leaves with the next uplink of the device.