"Alternatively two LoRa radios can just talk point-to-point between each other"
Is this a new development? Last I checked this wasn't possible.
Can I connect up little $6 dollar ESP LoRa modules to talk to each other?
The comments here suggest it's not possible: https://www.cnx-software.com/2017/10/13/this-ttgo-board-comb...
You are only feeding Semtech, the Microsoft of Lora, which has the patents on basic information encoding/decoding.
The only gateways you can have which listen on multiple channels are damn expensive.
Isn't LoRa basically just intended to be used one-way/upstream, i.e "node --> gateway --> end-device"? What am I missing?
See ttnmapper.org for the level of coverage and https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/docs/network/architecture.h... for an explanation of "downlink" return messages
I bought two with old screens and don't have any base stations. I beleive they can be connected in mesh with more too (not sure how many channels are needed)!
However LORA itself does work over P2P, and a common module is the ESP32 + LORA + OLED screen, which I have used and tested without any gateways.
Also I think separate from LORA altogether - There's something called ESPNOW which lets the ESP's mesh network, but that's not related to LORA and I haven't ever played with it.