LoRa point-to-point communication

Question

I would like to create a point-to-point connection between a LoRa temperature sensor and a M5 Stack (ESP32) with LoRa module. However, I am a beginner with LoRa, so I have a few questions:

Are all packets send with LoRa (not LoRaWAN) encrypted? Or does it depend on the producer of the LoRa sensor? Can the content of the packet received by the M5 Stack be viewed? (If I understand correctly, with the LoRaWAN the content can only be viewed after it is on the server). Can I send measured temperatures from multiple LoRa sensors to one M5 Stack? If yes, how could I distinguish from which sensor the packet has been sent?

Any help would be appreciated!

Answer 1

Raw LoRa is just about sending raw data using the LoRa modulation. There's no encryption, there are no acks, no counters, no device identifiers, nothing. All of this, happens in upper layers, usually the LoRaWAN layer.

If you want encryption on a raw LoRa link, unless the providers of the LoRa modules have added they their own, you'll have to do it yourself, with all the associated caveats (it's harder than you think, as was shown by WEP, though the levels of traffic on a LoRa link make some of the attacks on WEP unlikely).

In LoRaWAN encryption indeed happens between the end device and the LNS (network server).

If you use raw LoRa without encryption, you will most definitely be able to read any data sent by the end devices