That's pretty much exactly what they are. Text message in walkie-talkies. With the added benefit that if your friend can't hear you, but another friend is in between, your message automatically gets relayed through their walkie-talkie.

And you don't need to be a ham to run it.

Ever since I switched to lemmy, I constantly stumble upon people trying to guilt other people for their hobbies. That's pretty unhealthy.

Whoever reads this, don't feel guilty living your life. Spend time on whatever you're passionate about. Build new things, even if they do not have a rational use case at the moment. They might play an important role in your future.

I maintain three of these devices, if anyone has any questions.

Clickbait title. Just say it's meshtastic.

What is the range of a device like this? Is there any chance of using a mesh system like that if you're not in a city? I'm about 30 miles away from a few towns, so there's little chance for repeaters to be nearby.

Additionally is there a way to search what's already out there without a device?

Can you message random people or have to already know their contact info?

Ok.......what's meshtastic? I still haven't clicked the article, and know nothing of which you speak.

I'd say this title is for people like me. I think it sounds cool.

Theoretically you can get 50 ish miles or more with line of sight. In practice, you can get around 10 ish with repeaters. With around 30 devices, our city has effective coverage.

You also have options to use MQTT if you want to make sure a message gets through. But that requires an internet connection.

You can, there are websites that show some of the devices. But from what I've found, it's only showing around 1/4 of the real devices in the area. Or at least where I am at.

I'm on the phone so I'm not sure off the top of my head, but I think someone already linked a couple above.

It allows us to make a mesh network (interconnected nodes where you can contact a node even if it's not in range for you, by using other nodes) with Lora radio devices. Lora is slow but has long range. I think it works better when you have line of sight, like if someone can put a node on a mountain, it would help everyone.

I think people might have sent audio with it but it's mostly useful for text messages. It could be useful if the Internet is down, maybe, but it's more like a toy.

Definitely clickbait. The phrase "send texts" as it's been used for the past quarter century means "sms texts" or maybe "text messages to other people on mobile phone networks", which is not at all what this is.

If I wanted to transmit, for example, temperature and humidity from a sensor once every 5 minutes, would the network be willing to carry my signals?

Definitely clickbait. The phrase "send texts" as it's been used for the past quarter century means "sms texts" or maybe "text messages to other people on mobile phone networks", which is not at all what this is.

WiFi goes down and people sometimes NEED to communicate instead of streaming Netflix.

This is just an alternate channel, if Eheran doesn't have the imagination to understand how low bandwidth can still be extremely valuable, as compared to, say, screaming at the top of your lungs to attempt to be heard 5 miles away, then... I'm not really interested in what they think.

People are just discussing the pros and cons of technology in the Technology comm. Chill out.

Yeah this is not SMS! Its probably text that looks like:
¥¢¥^=¶√•€¢√°=¶}{°÷π^¥π¥¥°
°{}}∆∆×÷°%^¢¢°{]]×=%π¥√^%÷

Thanks. I eventually saw that comment and I am just a bit out of range of one listed.

What is the typical power requirement on these devices? Can it be used to set up IoT sensor nodes in the wild where they work off solar, or do they need periodic tuning/care?