Steven Osborn, of Oregon-based Third Venture Inc, has launched a crowdfunding campaign for a low-cost USB-connected LoRa transceiver: the LoRa Stik.

“In 2013 I worked on a solution for vineyard owners to monitor wine grapes. Back then we were using expensive and not very robust xBee radios and had poor tools for testing network health. It was pretty challenging and frustrating,” Steven explains of his inspiration for the project. “Over the past two years I’ve been working with LoRa devices and designed LoRa Stik for my own needs. LoRa technology along with LoRa Stik have made my life a lot simpler. I’ve made a lot of small improvements to LoRa Stik over recent months; it has been a valuable tool for me and I think it is finally time for me to share it with everyone.”

Designed for use with any computer or microcontroller capable of acting as a USB Host and featuring an ASCII interface, the LoRa Stick can be used in both packet and LoRaWAN modes – making it compatible with The Things Network – and is released under an unspecified open source licence. It is claimed to offer 140mA transmission and 20mA idle power draw and a 15km suburban and 5km urban coverage area.

The LoRa Stik is available to pre-order now via Crowd Supply, priced at $39 plus shipping and tax, while hardware and software sources are available on the project’s GitHub repository.