Welcome to the party! I designed a case for my own Meshtastic node in February, it went a bit viral and I had to start a business… 6 months later I’ve shipped over 2500 cases worldwide. It’s been wild and humbling!
Pro tip changing battery connector: Don‘t cut both wires in one go, scissors short the battery and you either create sparks, kill the longlivity of your battery or in worst case make fire. Cut one pole, solder in the same pole fpr the new adapter, heatshrink it - and THEN cut the other pole. Alternative cut the 2 poles at slightly different locations that you not create a short if insulation fails at a later time. Solder joints can have sharp pints, especially if you don‘t solder at a regular basis which cuts thru the insulation.
It's funny that my friend, with whom I was installing a new Unifi network at his business, was talking about using something like Meshtastic for communications between him and his friends when they were doing winter sports. I got a bunch of Meshtastic gear a year ago and played with it for a month, then got bored because I was the only one to communicate with. Now my friend is 40 miles away, so that won't work unless we strung a bunch of solar-powered repeaters through the desert of Western Colorado.
@@jbm206 he didn't answer your question lol. Typical range is 10 kilometers/6.2 miles. The 433 mhz might be better, only if that frequency is legal to use in your country.
Not gonna lie, I thought about setting up hundreds of these to be self-contained throughout phoenix to have my own private network across the city. I don't have the funds to do this, unfortunately, but it's a potential use case
Man, when I was working out in the sticks we didn't have any wireless monitoring of our equipment, we had Walky-talkies and we'd walk or ride out and call in if things needed refills. This would've been great cause we were pushing the limits of those little radios.
@@Barry_McKockiner No, the data throughput is far too low for that. It can do GPS tracking, hooks into civtak, and can send messages, and that's about it. It can be a lifesafer for search-and-rescue in disaster areas though, or emergency text comms in a widespread power outage.
Two people, each with a cell phone and mesh device, can be separated geographically and be able to text each other completely off grid. That’s the most common use of this.
This reminds of Beartooth - a device with basic text messaging for outdoor, away from cell coverage areas. I'm not sure what happened to them, but this looks very promising! I'll have to pickup a few kits and play around.
Hahah I’m currently setting up a network here in South Sydney. Only real negative I’ve come across is just waiting for gear to turn up from AliExpress, but that’s standard for Ali lol
What about temperature considerations inside of the box? Constant heat will eventually cause that tape to fail. Also, temperature extremes will damage that battery.
I was watching the video, and I was thinking "wow, that Target looks exactly like the one I shop at all the time." Then, I realized it IS the Target I shop at! (I'm a student at Penn State). I'm surprised there weren't any other radios turned on when you did your example with the check mark - Penn State is a big school, and I'd expect other people to have radios. I had a question though. What modem preset did you use for your mesh coverage example? Assuming you used the default setting, you could probably get better coverage for cheaper by setting it to the longest distance option, since you wouldn't need as many nodes. Also, the circles on the map were labeled as a 2-mile diameter, but it looks like their diameter is less than half a mile. If you could actually get a 2-mile diameter node, you could cover almost the entire campus. Anyways, I'm considering buying a radio. I'll make sure to say hi over the primary channel whenever I get one!
South African farmers would be grateful for such a network. They have been murdered by what appears to be state sponsored cell phone jammers and have had to set up radio networks but not so easy to get to the radio when the criminals are holding some parts of the family hostage while others could still communicate to neighboring farms.
Seem more like straight up burglars and extremist groups because of land stealing when the local natives were kicked out in the 90s If it was state sponsored they would easily be wiped out by sheer numbers These have been machete killings etc Also jammers could work on these just gotta be clever Not to mention they are going full “right wing” there so I’m sure the state isn’t helping stop it But it’s to small scale to be truly state sponsored it’s in the level seen all over Africa in destabilized nation Heck it’s smaller then the issues in the Congo
@@raiden72 Router nodes retransmitt faster than clients. If you set your home node to router, you could be "stealing" packets that would be better served being retransmitted from a node with more coverage using up hops for people's messages that ddin't have to. Router nodes should be reserved for nodes in optimum locations with large coverage area like mountain tops.
@@raiden72 Using ROUTER or REPEATER roles unnecessarily can cause serious network issues: Increased risk of packet collision. Reduced message delivery rates. Decreased effective network range due to unnecessary hop consumption.
This is fantastic!!!! Thank you so much for sharing your build and the information. If I had a nickel for every time that I forgot to put on a shrink wrap......O would have at least 25 cents. For some reason my girlfriend is looking at me with a side eye and shaking her head...lol
@@simcopter1821 - Thanks. I see cellphone antennas are now within the device, whereas really old cellphones had those pullout or external antennas. So it just seems like if metallic things aren’t interfering then the antenna could be attached within that enclosure. That would allow for it to have no external penetrations if the recharging is also done by opening the lid, and thus be really watertight.
@@stevebabiak6997the reason why is because cell coverage has gotten exponentially better so your phone doesn’t require a super efficient antenna anymore
The "Meshtastic Network Repeaters" map at 00:47 is.. curious. Would not the wireless coverage area of each device have to reach the center of the adjoining circle, where the transmitter of that circle is located, for that transmitter to be within the wireless coverage area of the adjoining unit? As presented it'd work fine if they were all connected using a cable or using a secondary, larger-coverage network, but if it's supposed to show their wireless operational range it won't work as shown..
So.... this won't actually make a wireless intenet / wifi networking mesh? It's a mesh that can be used for messaging / data messages (mqtt)? Is there a project like this for Mesh Wifi?
This has been extremely popular in the U.K. but has withered, it’s just not very good after all. Too many nodes in populated areas; sparse in the countryside and no links between
this comes down to elect officials doing their job and having the contingencies in place. Off-grid Drive for members that have device with apps loaded, 2 way radios, food Rations MREs etc. If you live in a hurricane zone or somewhere remote you should have an ANDROID as you can sideload apps via a USB cable. when SHTF there is going to always be those who are never prepared, will use others resources and need rescuing. its part of north americas culture.
You can share apps offline. Another way would be saving the apk file on a PC or several usb sticks (maybe this would bring back life to the usb dead drops) or even CDs. You could also share through wlan (wireless dead drops?)
Can this be used for IoT? I keep reading that its illegal to use for that purpose because you arent allowed to maintain connections over the frequency it uses. Are you getting around thst bh having a slow polling rate?
My plea to newbies: please don't ping over and over from a plane saying "lol I'm on a plane!" Yes it's cool that people on the ground can hear you but it's a 1 way conversation all about you and it pollutes the local channels
How does one single message pollute all the channels? What do you mean by that? I thought that you are only sending a message on one channel at a time.
im just not that geeky or cool or smart anymore. This would be frustrating trying to get all the parts and making them work together. Do they sell completed devices for idiots like myself who just want it to work?>
Yes. Lillygo has an all-in-one that doesn't need a tethered device to send messages (T Deck Plus) and people on etsy are selling fully assembled units.
the FCC wants to take back the 900 MHz band so might want to be careful using these devices as they won't be legal when the FCC reallocates the 900mhz band to something else.
It still too expensive. I can buy a Wifi 360 PTZ camera with battery and solar panel for 50$ Canadian ! How much does a solar/battery/waterproof repeater cost ? If it was cheap enough, I would buy a few and install them on public electric pole and try to make a super huge mesh network everyone could use ! But no one making them cheap enough yet sadly.
@@luckyday_5510 You can do communication over Bluetooth to other meshtastic users nearby. Also cruise ship wifi and cellular can be expensive if all you're looking for is to text family.
It's hackable, no secure, definitely tracksble, I'm not a fan of it frfr. It needs end to end encryption and open source is cool, but I need more features for it to be 100% reliable as good communication network for things. Tldr: it's not proven tech, it's high-tech enough to get you in trouble. Think hamas or a war zone area, you're broadcasting to much data openly.
While this 'could' have some farm applications, unfortunately the intersection of farmers and programmers is very small. Also, a lot the data you might want to gather is stuck behind closed systems (John Deere, for example, is well known for insisting everything is proprietary and farmers must pay license fees to use it) Lastly, the range would have to be a LOT better than a few blocks to be practical. My parents are small farmers and even their fields span an area of about 5 miles by 2 miles. As is common, their land isn't contiguous, so even if you were willing to pop up a bunch of nodes, many would have to put some on land you don't own to fill in the gaps.
I was driving around connecting to meshtastic nodes and discovered on in a rural area with no cell coverage. The nodes were in a nursary. THey had a solar powered node in the field with a weather station and a node in the office connected to MQTT. I couldn't figure out what MQTT channel they were on. THis is a round about way of saying that this application is very much real world.
in the US, it's 900 mhz so range is impacted by terrain and structures. Performance in urban areas will suffer. Over the weekend I was able to hit my roof node from a mountain top from 182 miles away. On a farm over open fields you'll get way more than a few blocks.
@@mivrame a 5.8dbi 16" antenna on the roof, and a stubby 3" on the T-Deck. My house is about 3600ft, the mountain top was 7600 ft. Though running a link study, this connection should be pretty much impossible so not sure what's going on there. I did hear another node on another mountain top that the link study says is line of sight which was 110 miles. That I can believe. I suspect the other mountain had a similar antenna to the one on my roof, maybe even an 8dbi.
would be awesome meshtastic can be used as low /slow data insternet relay for simple communication send recieve email or instant messenger to a relay with active internet connection / server
Welcome to the party! I designed a case for my own Meshtastic node in February, it went a bit viral and I had to start a business… 6 months later I’ve shipped over 2500 cases worldwide. It’s been wild and humbling!
Do you have an link ?
@@MortenEghjgoogle his TH-cam name. Comes right up. I have several from him. Quality 3D printed stuff.
Awesome t-shirt
@@MortenEghj Best just Google me 😃
whats the link
Pro tip changing battery connector:
Don‘t cut both wires in one go, scissors short the battery and you either create sparks, kill the longlivity of your battery or in worst case make fire. Cut one pole, solder in the same pole fpr the new adapter, heatshrink it - and THEN cut the other pole. Alternative cut the 2 poles at slightly different locations that you not create a short if insulation fails at a later time. Solder joints can have sharp pints, especially if you don‘t solder at a regular basis which cuts thru the insulation.
good tips
It's funny that my friend, with whom I was installing a new Unifi network at his business, was talking about using something like Meshtastic for communications between him and his friends when they were doing winter sports. I got a bunch of Meshtastic gear a year ago and played with it for a month, then got bored because I was the only one to communicate with. Now my friend is 40 miles away, so that won't work unless we strung a bunch of solar-powered repeaters through the desert of Western Colorado.
Sounds like a great project!
What are the typical range these can expect?
@@jbm206 Depends on line of sight, if you can get a node on a tall tower or mountain your range will be very far. Current record is 158 miles.
I mean, it sounds like a fun project 😄
@@jbm206 he didn't answer your question lol. Typical range is 10 kilometers/6.2 miles. The 433 mhz might be better, only if that frequency is legal to use in your country.
Been cruising around NV, AZ and NM with one in my pack back with a larger antenna. Collected over 250 nodes, most in Albuquerque.
Probably drug related
I’m able to send messages to San Diego, from Los Angeles, many nodes in between, community is growing
So other person also has to be using meshtastic to receive the message?
Not gonna lie, I thought about setting up hundreds of these to be self-contained throughout phoenix to have my own private network across the city. I don't have the funds to do this, unfortunately, but it's a potential use case
I'd be lying if I said I didnt have the exact same idea in my town.
Not me in phx thinking the same thing 🤣
My first thought is, what are you hiding to go to such lengths.
What's in your basement?
@@jd2161freedom
@jd2161 If you lock your doors, you should cover your windows.
I see this being very useful for putting these with Solar Panels in remote places in National Forests/Hiking trails.
Heck yeah! Glad to see you covering this project.
Thank you for mentioning meshtastic. Didn‘t know that.
Man, when I was working out in the sticks we didn't have any wireless monitoring of our equipment, we had Walky-talkies and we'd walk or ride out and call in if things needed refills. This would've been great cause we were pushing the limits of those little radios.
Fantastic work!
Interesting video, thought i'm still clueless on what it is/does and its use case/application. Seems a bit too niche to me.
Ditto, like can I use it to make a city wide private WiFi network?
@@Barry_McKockiner No, the data throughput is far too low for that. It can do GPS tracking, hooks into civtak, and can send messages, and that's about it. It can be a lifesafer for search-and-rescue in disaster areas though, or emergency text comms in a widespread power outage.
Most iot devices are niche. If they werent, they'd be integrated into comercial user end products.
@@Barry_McKockiner yes, but you would need alot of them. And it would be alot slower than a typical lte network.
Two people, each with a cell phone and mesh device, can be separated geographically and be able to text each other completely off grid. That’s the most common use of this.
good work pals, very clear and well produced
This reminds of Beartooth - a device with basic text messaging for outdoor, away from cell coverage areas. I'm not sure what happened to them, but this looks very promising! I'll have to pickup a few kits and play around.
Basically identical To Beartooth But Way Cheaper
I've been a ham for years and I didn't expect meshtastic on this channel. haha
I bet if you've done this, you've probably flashed a linksys or two, huh? Original wifi mesh network
Hahah I’m currently setting up a network here in South Sydney. Only real negative I’ve come across is just waiting for gear to turn up from AliExpress, but that’s standard for Ali lol
What about temperature considerations inside of the box?
Constant heat will eventually cause that tape to fail. Also, temperature extremes will damage that battery.
I was watching the video, and I was thinking "wow, that Target looks exactly like the one I shop at all the time." Then, I realized it IS the Target I shop at! (I'm a student at Penn State). I'm surprised there weren't any other radios turned on when you did your example with the check mark - Penn State is a big school, and I'd expect other people to have radios.
I had a question though. What modem preset did you use for your mesh coverage example? Assuming you used the default setting, you could probably get better coverage for cheaper by setting it to the longest distance option, since you wouldn't need as many nodes. Also, the circles on the map were labeled as a 2-mile diameter, but it looks like their diameter is less than half a mile. If you could actually get a 2-mile diameter node, you could cover almost the entire campus.
Anyways, I'm considering buying a radio. I'll make sure to say hi over the primary channel whenever I get one!
nice ive been looking to get into meshtastic . hopefully i will do it soon
I'd be interested to hear how one goes about placing solar nodes within the community?
@justanothercomment416 Convince nearby business/homeowners?
South African farmers would be grateful for such a network. They have been murdered by what appears to be state sponsored cell phone jammers and have had to set up radio networks but not so easy to get to the radio when the criminals are holding some parts of the family hostage while others could still communicate to neighboring farms.
Seem more like straight up burglars
and extremist groups because of land stealing when the local natives were kicked out in the 90s
If it was state sponsored they would easily be wiped out by sheer numbers
These have been machete killings etc
Also jammers could work on these just gotta be clever
Not to mention they are going full “right wing” there so I’m sure the state isn’t helping stop it
But it’s to small scale to be truly state sponsored it’s in the level seen all over Africa in destabilized nation
Heck it’s smaller then the issues in the Congo
Remember, kids. Always keep your nodes set to "client"!!
This! (or client_mute). My roof node is set to client. My T-Deck is Client_Mute.
Can you help explain why we should keep it set at client? What's wrong with being a server or a repeater?
@@raiden72 Router nodes retransmitt faster than clients. If you set your home node to router, you could be "stealing" packets that would be better served being retransmitted from a node with more coverage using up hops for people's messages that ddin't have to. Router nodes should be reserved for nodes in optimum locations with large coverage area like mountain tops.
@@raiden72 Using ROUTER or REPEATER roles unnecessarily can cause serious network issues: Increased risk of packet collision. Reduced message delivery rates. Decreased effective network range due to unnecessary hop consumption.
This is fantastic!!!! Thank you so much for sharing your build and the information. If I had a nickel for every time that I forgot to put on a shrink wrap......O would have at least 25 cents. For some reason my girlfriend is looking at me with a side eye and shaking her head...lol
How about combining it with the Flipper zero
It would be perfect if we could use it in great catastrophes! But the range is a limit, and will allways be!
Will this ever support a walkies talkie like feature or is voice not possible with this technology?
The Bandwith At This Frequency Is Just Too Low To Handle Voice Packets
If we are able to further compress voice packages in the future why not?
Very informative!
With that clear plastic waterproof case, do you really have to install the antenna outside of the box?
Thinking inside the box here ;)
It is not strictly necessary but it would greatly increase the effectiveness of the antenna.
@@simcopter1821 - Thanks. I see cellphone antennas are now within the device, whereas really old cellphones had those pullout or external antennas. So it just seems like if metallic things aren’t interfering then the antenna could be attached within that enclosure. That would allow for it to have no external penetrations if the recharging is also done by opening the lid, and thus be really watertight.
@@stevebabiak6997the reason why is because cell coverage has gotten exponentially better so your phone doesn’t require a super efficient antenna anymore
Can be this used as a walkie talkie like on the ski hill?
Yes But Will Only Give Text And GPS. No Voice With This Tech
The "Meshtastic Network Repeaters" map at 00:47 is.. curious. Would not the wireless coverage area of each device have to reach the center of the adjoining circle, where the transmitter of that circle is located, for that transmitter to be within the wireless coverage area of the adjoining unit? As presented it'd work fine if they were all connected using a cable or using a secondary, larger-coverage network, but if it's supposed to show their wireless operational range it won't work as shown..
hmm didnt think bout that before, but yea sounds like thatd be a prob
Yeah. That map is just an exagerated sketch to get the point across.
Dude, I need that shirt.
This could be a new form of social-media if they upgrade the app to include more features
So.... this won't actually make a wireless intenet / wifi networking mesh? It's a mesh that can be used for messaging / data messages (mqtt)? Is there a project like this for Mesh Wifi?
For meshing WiFi you can use normal access points 🤔 the catch with meshtastic is LoRa and it's extreme range.
I heard that some devices can reach over 500 km i'm interested how build them
This has been extremely popular in the U.K. but has withered, it’s just not very good after all. Too many nodes in populated areas; sparse in the countryside and no links between
Sounds like most enthusiast driven community wifi projects.
@@Alan.livingston you’re absolutely spot on there.
Shame. I am in rural Norfolk, thinking of buying a few and dotting them around. I can do Sheringham aylsham and easton.
My main issue with this is getting people online after SHTF. If you need to have the app already loaded on your phone, then you’re kind of SOL.
this comes down to elect officials doing their job and having the contingencies in place.
Off-grid Drive for members that have device with apps loaded, 2 way radios, food Rations MREs etc.
If you live in a hurricane zone or somewhere remote you should have an ANDROID as you can sideload apps via a USB cable.
when SHTF there is going to always be those who are never prepared, will use others resources and need rescuing. its part of north americas culture.
I can install apps from a flash drive, nearby share, etc. because I don't use an apple leap frog phone
You can share apps offline. Another way would be saving the apk file on a PC or several usb sticks (maybe this would bring back life to the usb dead drops) or even CDs. You could also share through wlan (wireless dead drops?)
Ordering buying link
Can this be used for IoT? I keep reading that its illegal to use for that purpose because you arent allowed to maintain connections over the frequency it uses. Are you getting around thst bh having a slow polling rate?
I like the idea of satellite network coverage as satellites are 100% off grid. Cell towers, not so.
I can't believe you talked me into the validity of this product...
My plea to newbies: please don't ping over and over from a plane saying "lol I'm on a plane!" Yes it's cool that people on the ground can hear you but it's a 1 way conversation all about you and it pollutes the local channels
How does one single message pollute all the channels? What do you mean by that? I thought that you are only sending a message on one channel at a time.
Can it lower ping in games
Only in Zork
This looks & Sounds Like a ton of Fun For City Dwellers But Sadly Out Here in Very Rural Mountains of Eastern Ky Just not possible !
This is interesting. I'm a Radio Amateur is similar to APRS can send positions, short messages, have digipeters and gateways to Internet.
No parts list??????? :\
WisBlock Meshtastic Starter Kit
$30 no battery.
add Gps,
around $60.
awesome
I want to buy these devices from u
It's twu, it's twu! That's a great shirt!
im just not that geeky or cool or smart anymore. This would be frustrating trying to get all the parts and making them work together. Do they sell completed devices for idiots like myself who just want it to work?>
Yes. Lillygo has an all-in-one that doesn't need a tethered device to send messages (T Deck Plus) and people on etsy are selling fully assembled units.
So uhh is it free
the FCC wants to take back the 900 MHz band so might want to be careful using these devices as they won't be legal when the FCC reallocates the 900mhz band to something else.
It still too expensive. I can buy a Wifi 360 PTZ camera with battery and solar panel for 50$ Canadian ! How much does a solar/battery/waterproof repeater cost ? If it was cheap enough, I would buy a few and install them on public electric pole and try to make a super huge mesh network everyone could use ! But no one making them cheap enough yet sadly.
Really interesting! I really wish someone would manufacture some versions of these xmitters.
*Another great use case is on a cruise ship*
No, they don’t connect to phones. Also cruise ships already have cellular and Wi-Fi.
@@luckyday_5510 You can do communication over Bluetooth to other meshtastic users nearby. Also cruise ship wifi and cellular can be expensive if all you're looking for is to text family.
Looks like I know what I’m buying…
900mHz? Awfully close to the bandwidth used for household electrical smart meters....
101% battery
bro i tought you wanna sel that to me for a sec
Congratulations it's a fancy walkie talkie
More than that
Nos can drone
It's hackable, no secure, definitely tracksble, I'm not a fan of it frfr.
It needs end to end encryption and open source is cool, but I need more features for it to be 100% reliable as good communication network for things.
Tldr: it's not proven tech, it's high-tech enough to get you in trouble. Think hamas or a war zone area, you're broadcasting to much data openly.
So would this work to attach wyze cameras on 40 acres where I can't extend my wifi?
Or is this just for text msging
Not even slightly. It barely works at all. Ask me how I know.
No, the bandwidth is very very low
Cool piece of hardware, but I have absolutely no need for this other than as a toy.
Thank you for letting me know.
@CrosstalkSolutions 😂
While this 'could' have some farm applications, unfortunately the intersection of farmers and programmers is very small.
Also, a lot the data you might want to gather is stuck behind closed systems (John Deere, for example, is well known for insisting everything is proprietary and farmers must pay license fees to use it)
Lastly, the range would have to be a LOT better than a few blocks to be practical. My parents are small farmers and even their fields span an area of about 5 miles by 2 miles. As is common, their land isn't contiguous, so even if you were willing to pop up a bunch of nodes, many would have to put some on land you don't own to fill in the gaps.
I was driving around connecting to meshtastic nodes and discovered on in a rural area with no cell coverage. The nodes were in a nursary. THey had a solar powered node in the field with a weather station and a node in the office connected to MQTT. I couldn't figure out what MQTT channel they were on.
THis is a round about way of saying that this application is very much real world.
@@mistermarkdavis neat!
in the US, it's 900 mhz so range is impacted by terrain and structures. Performance in urban areas will suffer. Over the weekend I was able to hit my roof node from a mountain top from 182 miles away. On a farm over open fields you'll get way more than a few blocks.
Pretty impressive @@turbo2ltr! What antenna are you using?
@@mivrame a 5.8dbi 16" antenna on the roof, and a stubby 3" on the T-Deck. My house is about 3600ft, the mountain top was 7600 ft. Though running a link study, this connection should be pretty much impossible so not sure what's going on there. I did hear another node on another mountain top that the link study says is line of sight which was 110 miles. That I can believe. I suspect the other mountain had a similar antenna to the one on my roof, maybe even an 8dbi.
Who here bc ww3✋️✋️
Banana Comment
You need ham license so that you can running a high power node on 443.750
But then you can't use encryption.
For some, liscensing defeats the purpose. That's like asking parent's permission to "sneak out"
Banana
soo...its $75 boxes WiFi Halow from aliexpress )))
Wonder how powerful this unit is compared to those
Meshtastic radios tend to use far less power and is a different protocol. Range is much higher and bandwidth is much lower.
I am here.
All Might!? LOL
It’s just glorified Lora. I have been using it for like 10years with arduino 🙄
@@Dextermorga why haven’t you made a YT and shared the goodness then?
hey yo!
👍👍👍
i called the FTC and police for your area. You will be stopped peeping tom.
What does your comment even mean?
Yeah, the only peeping toms we like are our goverment and corporations!
Too much tinkering with antennas, case, battery. At best you can reach 1 mile in the city. And you get what? A text message. From whom? A stranger.😂
would be awesome meshtastic can be used as low /slow data insternet relay for simple communication send recieve email or instant messenger to a relay with active internet connection / server