Meshtastic

Overview

Meshtastic is an open source, low bandwidth mesh network that runs on 933MHz in the U.S. It runs on LoRa radio technology which is very low power, line of sight. Nodes can broadcast for miles if you are high on a hill. In an urban, flat area you might get 0.25 miles. But the power of the mesh is that if just one node can hear your message, then it can be relayed on to others.

Some people use these nodes when they are out camping in the wilderness without any cell phone service. The nodes automatically repeat messages and share their GPS location. It's a great way for a team to stay in touch.

Of course if you are the only person in your area running a Meshtastic node, then you won't have anyone to chat with. If you want to join a local mesh then you should web search for a group of enthusiasts in your area. Often an area will use radio settings that are different from the defaults, so you need to know what they are. For example, in the San Francisco Bay Area there is an active group names Bay Mesh. They use Discord to help people grow the mesh.

You can buy a node for as little as $25. The node pairs with your phone over Bluetooth and you control it via the Meshtastic app. Once you have your node running you can send text messages to other nodes, or send a message to the "general" channel. Channels are encrypted but the General channel has a default encryption key of AQ== so everyone can read those messages.

You can read up on this fascinating technology at the Meshtastic web site.

Why this page?

While the documentation is good, it feels like a lot is left unsaid. This page holds tips, tricks, and just bits of knowledge that we have come across in bringing up our own nodes into the BayMesh. Hopefully we'll get this knowledge into the official docs, but that can take a while. This page can be updated on the spur of the moment.

Radio Things

Bay Mesh has some good hardware recommendations.

We have personally used the Heltec V3. It is small and simple to use. It comes with a small whip antenna. When we upgraded with this inexpensive antenna our connectivity went way up.

Many radios run at 125 milliwatt. However, some run at 1 watt which is 8 times the transmit power! We are waiting to receive our B&Q Station G2 to see how much this boosts our experience.

Height above ground will dramatically improve your experience. The higher the better. If you drive to the top of a hill your signal will propagate much further. Like A LOT further. In one experiment we got good reception 1/4 mile down the block in an urban setting; the same devices with one on a hill worked at 3 miles! Always line of sight.

Configuration

The default is "Client". In this mode your node will participate in the mesh by retransmitting messages it receives. (This is a simplification, read the Meshtastic web site for more details.) However, this can clog up the mesh. Unless you are building your own network in some remote wilderness, your nodes should always be configured as "Client Mute", or "Client Hidden". NEVER configure as "Repeater" or "Router" until you know your local mesh needs that.

One exception - Suppose you have several devices in your home / building. In this case you could have one node put up high, maybe in the attic or on the roof, set to "Client" while all your other nodes are "Client Mute". This way your mute node messages will get picked up by your roof top node and it will send them on to further nodes.