This Tiny Radio Lets Me Send Texts Without Wi-Fi or Cell Service
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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?
Device Configuration | Meshtastic
Learn about and compare device roles such as Client, Repeater, and Router as well as other Device settings.
(meshtastic.org)
SENSOR is one of the defined device roles. And whether for personal automation or public information, it is a reasonable use case for the network.
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Can you message random people or have to already know their contact info?
It is channel-based, using Pre-Shared Keys (PSK).
There is a public line where you can message pretty much everyone with the blank PSK.
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The maps do not show any devices in the country where I live, but due to the low cost and practical use, I’d love to set some up.
If i am usually within 6km of my home, in a city. I wonder if 1 node will be enough coverage.
Also, how can you tell that there are more nodes than reported on those sites?
The phone app gives the location of nodes want you to know. And most don't care. For example, in my city there is currently 24 online nodes my window node has interacted with. And 174 in total nodes it's contacted today.
It can be spotty during certain times of the day.
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It is channel-based, using Pre-Shared Keys (PSK).
There is a public line where you can message pretty much everyone with the blank PSK.
Oh, now that sounds fun
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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?
I'm running about 1w per device ATM.
So yeah it sips energy. There's a lot of nodes in the mountains that are solar powered. They work.
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It is cool! The barrier to entry is relatively low. The only thing to really worry about is:
- What band/frequency is appropriate for you country.
- Are there others around to which you can connect?
If there's not a lot of people around it's not the end of the world. Nodes can connect over the Internet via MQTT servers. Yes, this defeats the purpose of having an offline/decentralized communication platform, but it is a good stop gap until more nodes are put up.
Here's a sample of what I can see in a somewhat large-ish Midwest City in the US (there's about 63 nodes I can reach by hopping through relays).
I got mine recently in a dxent aized city and while there are plenty of nodes popping up on the map, the local channel is pretty quiet. Is that normal?
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I maintain three of these devices, if anyone has any questions.
I got mine recently in a dxent aized city and while there are plenty of nodes popping up on the map, the local channel is pretty quiet. Is that normal?
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Yeah, we had to make a weather app on longfast to fill the void. Tech people tend to not talk all that much. We are the strange ones
Most of the weather app was made from a reddit post back a year or so ago. I have no idea where though. App is a python script here if your interested.
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I don't know. It's the same for me but I got a pretty bad reception. The only time I saw some messages was when someone was sending some from a plane, so I guess it was a special occasion.
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Yep, that can be normal. For my city, the local group has a private (but free to join) channel that's a bit more active.
Do a web search for meshtastic and your city and see if one pops up.
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Funny thing about Wi-Fi, it overlaps with an Amateur radio band (the 2.4GHz spec does) and so hams are allowed to run Wi-Fi with no encryption but a tremendous amount of power and high gain antennas on like the highest channels.
A portion of the 5GHz WiFI band overlaps with the 5.8GHz ham band too. There are also a few WiFi radios that will also work above the US WiFi band where they can operate without interference from other license free devices. Those are used in the HamWAN network.
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At that point, given the extremely small bandwidth, we might as well just use a massive wifi, everyone already has the required hardware for that instead of producing more trash for a pretty much non-existing use case.
In trying times you're missing the big picture. If they were more commonplace, you'd have a decentralised communication network that can't be shut down by the government.
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Some people already are
But the point of LoRa is in the name, long range. Wifi barely reaches outside my house. Also a WiFi mesh is dependent on a variety of complicated and proprietary networks and systems while meshtastic is entirely independent.
Isn't LoRa proprietary? Like, Meshtastic is open source, but something about the radio itself is proprietary tech?
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Eisenhower also didn’t drone strike anyone.
General Eisenhower definitely bombed some people.
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Clickbait title. Just say it's meshtastic.
I mean it's an article for people like me who have never heard of that
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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.
What about without line of sight? If I get one of these is it going to work while it's sitting on my desk, or am I going to have to mount some antennas on the roof to actually make it usable? The maps only show like three other people in my city with one, so I'm not sure how useful this will actually be for me.
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I maintain three of these devices, if anyone has any questions.
How does this differ from IP over ham radio? It seems like in general, it would just be lower distance and greater reliance on nodes near you, with the trade off being smaller equipment.
IP over Ham Radio via New Packet Radio - TheModernHam
New packet radio by F4HDK offers the ability to create a LAN or connect to the internet via amateur radio RF links on the 70cm ham band.
TheModernHam (themodernham.com)
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Eisenhower also didn’t drone strike anyone.
Eisenhower had probably the worst foreign policy record because of the Dulles bros. Almost all the CIA government coups that happened occurred during Eisenhower and ended up in disasters decades later.
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Sucks you can’t charge it and have to instead go to a central bank to exchange minted coins for notes that you can exchange for the commodity that is the radio.
“Money can be exchanged for goods and services” - Homer Simpson
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Companies are starting to manufacture repeaters and they are not that expensive. You can get one for about 100 Federal Reserve Notes.
Yeah, I’ve seen some clever stuff where they take a solar powered light and wire in a Heltec V3 for $30-$40. But I thought one of the new upcoming standards (WiFi? Cell?) incorporated a mesh capability.
