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Cyan488
I had never heard of this before, then last week I watched a video about it and was hooked. Now I'm seeing it everywhere!
Meshtastic and Meshcore are both cool LoRa-based mesh text messaging that operate in an no-license-required band. While this limits your transmit power, it doesn't prohibit encryption - the inverse of most ham radio rules!
Some cities have thriving communities of Meshtastic and/or Meshcore. You can look at maps of coverage to get a very general idea - in my experience, most Meshtastic nodes are NOT listed, while a good number of Meshcore nodes are.
Meshtastic treats the mesh as dynamic - clients are assumed to always be moving, so transmissions flood between different nodes that are in eachother's reach.
Meshcore has a static layer - repeaters that are assumed to be in fixed positions - and a dynamic layer - companions that move. With fixed and hopefully reliable connections between repeaters, routing paths between two users can be 'cached', which avoid the bandwidth overhead of flood routing.
You can get started with a low cost ($30) transceiver board and an SMA antenna ($10) for the ISM band of your region. Stick it in a box an mount it somewhere high up, and see if you can pick up any other nodes!
celsoazevedo
> in my experience, most Meshtastic nodes are NOT listed, while a good number of Meshcore nodes are.
I don't know about online tools, but it should be the opposite when actually using it, as by default Meshtastic is much more chatty (and wasteful) than Meshcore.
varispeed
So you have the mesh and then what?
Do people communicate to distribute prohibited anti-government propaganda or is it a network of people who otherwise be too shy to talk to each other by other means?
What is the use case?
laurowyn
> What is the use case?
It's primarily just an experimental system. Demonstrating that fixed infrastructure isn't actually necessary to communicate.
Beyond that, it's a mixture of HAM radio for communicating with people outside of your immediate circle, and disaster prep.
The best realistic scenario I can see for using it is after a sever weather event like hurricane, tornado, tsunami, etc. that takes out significant comms equipment. Having an ad-hoc network pop up using battery powered nodes able to setup a secure comms channel to organise aid deliveries would be a powerful tool. But existing infrastructure is resilient enough that it's not actually necessary in modern times.
Beyond that, it's probably more of an IoT type thing. Setup a bunch of nodes across a significant area of land, run machinery, sensors, etc. remotely via a self-healing mesh network.
sandworm101
People forget that this network isnt for everyday use. It is for use in ad-hoc scenarios where cell or even satellite coverage falls apart. The most powerful aspect is that these things are deployable. A communication chain can be established as fast as people can move. Natural disasters are the most obvious use case, but more interesting are things like search and rescue.
Go somewhere properly remote such as the high north. There is no cell network outside of town. And the satellite coverage is spotty at best. Say you need to go look for someone. Meshtastic relays can be up and working in minutes. A chain of rescuers can spread out along a path, and remain talking to each other, as fast as they can move. Sure, radios can do this too, but long range voice radio require serious power and are still largely line-of-sight. Radio relays are an entirely other expensive thing.
Think also of remote camps (logging/planting/fishing/climbing etc). Toss a lora relay on every vehicle and every work party can talk via the app installed on their normal phones. Use GPS-enabled devices and you can passively keep track of every vehicle. Need to operate two valleys over? As the first crew deploys out they can plop down relays at key points. Years ago I setup something like this using wifi relays. It was hell. It never worked right. The range and lower power demands of lora would have been infinitely easier.
repelsteeltje
Some scary applications come to mind.
For instance, sprinkling a bunch of nodes + sensors in hostile territory should allow for gathering intelligence, guiding drones, setting of fuses...
mrandish
I used to wonder the same thing and then we bought a vacation home and experienced no cell service in an area close to a major metro. It's only a 40 min highway drive outside a top 20 U.S. big city. Our street is only 12 mins drive from a major interstate highway with the usual suburban superstore sprawl (Target, WalMart, Home Depot, Costco) so it feels like we're in the middle of 'civilization'. But once you turn off the highway, that last 12 mins gets both beautiful (with rugged hills) and also very empty.
Five mins from our house suddenly cell service from all the providers gets very spotty. If you live near the top of a hill facing the right direction, you can maybe jury rig a cellular antenna on a pole. There is legacy POTS phone service via 60 year-old copper but few use it because it's only ISDN barely faster than dial-up and >$100/mo. Otherwise, there was no option for reliable residential phone/data/text service until Starlink became available in our area a couple years ago.
So everyone in our entire area has 2M radios to communicate in emergencies because in four years we've had two fires come close enough to close our roads, been snowed in twice (without power) and a small bridge got damaged in flooding blocking vehicle access in and out for four days. We can't even see any of our neighbor's houses from our property yet several times a year we need to get extremely local information from, and coordinate with, people we'd have to hike to visit. And it's usually because something is happening which takes out local power and/or road access. But the old 2M radios have to be monitored in a real-time which feels really antiquated. So, to me, inexpensive LoRa that could enable store-and-forward messaging and conditional unattended alerts suddenly sounds very useful.
2ndorderthought
It's not all people trying to skirt the law. It's kind of like HAM radio as a hobby. It's fun technology that lets people do cool automation projects and sure with a mesh connect to other people. Imagine you have a few acres of land and want to turn on sprinklers or something.
A lot of people use it just to chat with friends and family in a fun way.
Of course the preppers and privacy evangelists see it as a means to get ready for living in a hostile environment. Being fair to them, things don't look awesome in the US.
I bet a few criminals use it, but it's still very niche.
fiskeben
It runs independently of internet and power. One use case is a group of people in a remote area (hikers, hunters) carrying their own node and being able to communicate via text over several kilometres.
para_parolu
Or you just use iPhone satellite messaging without relying on extra devices that may not even work in mountains
fodkodrasz
A PMR or DMR radio can also do that. And is cheaper and user friendlier.
wang_li
v. a satellite enabled phone that can send text messages over thousands of kilometers?
These people should not be making a short range text solution, they should be building a low bandwidth internet extension with gateways to the real internet. Most of the information content of the internet can readily fit over 56kb lines once you strip out all the fluff. And in an emergency where you need or want a decentralized mesh network, that's more important that being able to text, who exactly?
dmd
If you see this technology and think "wow! that solves [problem I already have]" - then it's great.
Otherwise, you buy a couple, set them up, spend a week or two sending very slow and unreliably forwarded messages that mostly amount to "hi! i have an ACME 32ABC radio! What do you have?", and then put it in a drawer or sell it on.
Just like ham radio, really.
chabes
People will go on and on about what happens to society when the internet or cell service goes offline, but when they see an emergency solution staring them directly in the face, they wonder what the use case is.
Cyan488
Just like ham radio, it's a an interesting technical hobby for those that may get excited when their little 0.25W radio hits a repeater 80km away.
More practically, I'm going to try it out while camping this summer. In areas with low or no cell coverage, my phone is useless or dies quickly. Throw a repeater in a tree, and hand your friends nodes.
the_gipsy
You send "test" and hope that someone replies.
Sometimes you discuss new Meshtastic gear or setting up a router together.
bergie
We are in the South Pacific with our sailboat, and are using Meshtastic every day to talk between ourselves and with various buddy boats. The boat has a solar-powered repeater (CLIENT_BASE) on the mast that increases communications range significantly.
This all works great with no local SIM cards or other subscriptions or infrastructure needed.
We plan to run experiments with Reticulum when we stop for the cyclone season. Reticulum would open a lot more possibilities with both LoRa and internet-based comms. The Columba app seems to do a lot to bridge the usability gap, but work will need to be done to integrate Reticulum with our boat systems the way we have with Meshtastic (alerting, telemetry, digital switching control).
moffers
I took a plunge into learning about mesh networks, specifically because I love the idea of p2p/decentralized systems of communication. To be honest, I was surprised to find that my expectations for “where we are at” with this type of technology was pretty off-base. For some reason I thought by now it would be straightforward to do a little more than text messaging over a truly public and decentralized off-internet mesh. Maybe I’ve missed some things in my search (still learning!) and someone can correct my understanding.
Panda_
The Reticulum Network Stack is a more generic lora capable protocol. It is intended to run over almost any two way link so it's less bandwidth efficient per packet than Meshtastic but in return it gives you packet routing rather than flooding. It can be run over TCP, LoRa, WiFi, etc.
https://reticulum.network/start.html has an overview and how to connect.
There is a manual with a lot more information on how it works and the ideas behind it at https://reticulum.network/manual/ however it's quite large and not really a user friendly guide
If you just want to play with it https://reticulum.network/manual/software.html has a list of clients and software using it.
moffers
This is awesome. I love that people are working on this. I wish for the day I can own a box that boots up, and gives me the 90s-00s internet experience without needing to ask permission from a bunch of middlemen.
itomato
Reticulum has more to offer, it’s just not the welcome mat/filter the others are.
Chit-chat is one thing.
Melatonic
Now that actually sounds interesting!
BadBadJellyBean
You can create a network tunnel over meshtastic with the CLI. I haven't had the time to try it but I assume it's quite slow.
tclancy
It's ok, I don't read that fast.
yardie
I've been using Meshtastic for years. Still have a few Heltec v2 nodes running. It's been a lot of fun. It also encouraged me to get my HAM license since most of the local meshtastic/meshcore users are also in the radio clubs.
It reminds me of the early internet. In the early 90s the entire list of URLs could fill a notebook. And it was my first exposure to P2P nets. Meshtastic is a bit like that where it doesn't work well until you have a large enough community of nodes and gateways.
prism56
I tried meshtastic but there is literally nobody around me.
It's like trying to get friends to use signal. I've moved to Meshcore recently and it gets me connected to the rest of the UK. But it took me 2 dedicated repeaters.
I love the meshcore homesassitant plugin, managed to setup some alerts to send out a message on a private channel every 5 minutes if I lose power as an example.
bramgn
Nice to hear your experience, as it sounds similar to where i'm currently at. I'm in the south of Norway and there's not much activity on Meshcore yet. I had set up a repeater on a nearby hill, and then one Saturday I started receiving messages in the public channel. At first I thought someone was passing by in town, but I soon realized (and confirmed) that these were messages from Denmark! Some were 200+ KMs away (mostly over sea). I was chatting to people and even able to login to a remote Repeater. I was flabbergasted. Now I'm using the amazing antenna coverage function within the MC app to find best locations of repeaters, which is a fun pastime on itself, especially in a hilly environment. It's a fun and educational exeperience if nothing else! It reminds me very much of packet radio back in the 90s, similar vibe.
prism56
Yes! I used that antenna coverage functionality to plan my repeater locations. It worked well.
I just picked up a T1000-E to take on holiday next week, interested if I see anything in the air of in Europe.
mingus88
Same. The internet isn’t fun anymore, and hasn’t been in a long time.
These local meshes remind me of BBS days. You have to know a few things to access it and the community is all the better for it.
dewey
Somewhat related thread from the past days https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47999636 that also discusses Reticulum which is an interesting project in the same space too.
From what I could see the general vibe seems to be shifting from meshtastic to meshcore.io in the past months.
szszrk
It's a natural direction to hop from Meshtastic to Meshcore.io as the community grows.
They are implemented a bit differently. The chatty nature of Meshtastic works very well in small groups, or unknown area, when you need to talk a bunch of your friends scattered during a trip, to monitor your tracktors on a large field, etc..
Then you try to scale it to a larger city and it just completely breaks. Then Meshcore.io enters the picture. Every larger community that switches says the same - it's a huge reliability difference. It also comes at a cost of some discipline and more infrastructure planning (repeater nodes).
The more I play with both the more I respect both projects.
As for Reticulum, I don't see it competing in the same category at all. It has much higher aspirations, but also it seems at the moment it's much less practical and popular.
dewey
> As for Reticulum, I don't see it competing in the same category at all.
Indeed, but when talking to friends who find Meshtastic / Meshcore interesting we often also talk about Reticulum as it has some overlaps and is an interesting project.
Melatonic
Seems like Meshtastic could be replaced by something like BitChat (no hardware needed) for smaller groups and adhoc use (like the example you give of a group on a trip)
If you are going to have the setup and work of repeater nodes though doesnt something that gives actual network use between devices make more sense?
axegon_
I have a node running 24/7 (I also happen to be hosting one of the dozen or so things network nodes in my city) and while the idea is great, the adoption is close to 0. In a city with a 2+ million residents, I see a handful of users, as in less than 10. Same with the things network actually.
robotswantdata
Love meshtastic. There’s something about the setup friction that has the vibe of early internet, select community, high signal, nobody trying to monetize your attention.
joemazerino
Agreed. And opt-in. Early internet access required some knowledge about computers.
lu5t
If you're interested in Meshtastic, just try Meshcore instead. It's the natural hobbiest progression. Eventually you'll get tired of Meshtastic being nothing but telemetry from unknown nodes, nobody talks, it's a ghost town of weak links. Meshcore on the other hand has people actually having conversations, networks that span whole states, and diagnostic tools that actually work and are informative for describing the network around you.
doom2
I don't think this is quite accurate advice. Go where the activity is. Around me, in a city of ~1.5M, the Meshtastic community is quite active. They've worked with local ham radio clubs. They have members setting up a larger mesh that stretches the state from north to south. Meshcore isn't as active, although people are experimenting with it just like Meshtastic. But because Meshtastic has more local users, that's what I would recommend to people here. Meanwhile, places like the PNW and Boston have adopted Meshcore. So I might recommend new users there to try Meshcore. It's okay to have both.
This us vs them/there must be a winner attitude that I see in both communities is really toxic and unnecessary. Look at ham radio: some people use CW, some people use SSB, some people use SSTV, some people use FT8 (but not everyone! There are still hams using other digital modes), many operators dabble in a mix of the above. There are a variety of options and nobody is pressuring other operators to use a particular mode or band.
3x35r22m4u
Maybe it depends? In my city, the online map shows only 2 Meshcore nodes, while Meshtastic 36 nodes.
And I've never spent time learning about it, but I'm under the impression Meshtastic is all about open-source and closer to ham radio philosophy, while Meshcore is backed by some for-profit organization?
lu5t
Meshcore is MIT licensed open source firmware. There are both open source and closed source client softwares. You get to choose which you support. I think that's where the confusion comes in. It's no more for-profit than Meshtastic, which gets revenue from partnerships with hardware vendors
dpedu
The biggest problem with Meshtastic is that discussions about it inevitably get spammed by Meshcore evangelicals.
tclancy
Good to know. I had been teetering on picking this stuff up for a month or so. Now that I know it is yet another tech nerd thing that has an Us vs Them zealotry (or Pepsi Taste Loyalty Test), I'm sold. If I profile as iPhone, Playstation, ReplayTV over TiVo, Sega over NES, C64, videodisc over cassette (I blame my dad for that) which side should I choose? Does either one have better quality zealots (I want to be on the other side)?
lu5t
true, that tends to happen when there's a better but lesser known choice for most applications; one feels motivated to share. To each their own though, there's all kinds out here. Some people like linux, some people like windows, some like to do both
mikeytown2
It's because we've tried Meshtastic and MeshCore. Look at where the bytes go in the network. Meshtastic it's usually under 5% of traffic is text and for MeshCore it's over 50%. If you want to communicate MeshCore is designed to do that.
RobotToaster
I assume there's no firmware that can speak both, or create a bridge?
Larrikin
Is there something preventing people from just setting up both?
lu5t
not at all, many do run both, although usually a preference for one or the other presents itself quickly
blhack
This is bad advice. The choice depends on which is more popular in your area. For me in Phoenix that’s meshtastic.
blhack
Meshtastic is really cool! The heltec v4 is the best board for it you can get on Amazon.
Put it on your roof with a cheap solar panel meant for a security camera, and join it to your home WiFi.
Just use the little plastic case it came in as an enclosure. Cut a hole for the antenna and USB.
A slightly larger antenna will help. There are many on Amazon, and they’re cheap.
(I have tried lots of boards and this has been the best setup for me)
drdaeman
Meshtastic is… okay, but I was seriously put off the fact that a node can’t work with multiple clients (like phone and desktop) cooperatively, even with TCP transports. And that’s a protocol design issue, it has single client in mind. Virtual nodes didn’t work for me (I verified every configurable knob but I haven’t bothered debugging what goes on under the hood).
But it’s the only radio-based mesh network I’ve ever “seen” anyone else on.
simonjgreen
Have a look at meshrank and the current map over UK. It’s quite wild how much coverage there is.
compumike
Check out this map: https://api.phillymesh.net/map for live data from the Philadelphia area.
The edges drawn are between nodes that have been able to hear each other in the last 24 hours, based on observed traceroute packets.
(Even then, it’s only a subset of the actually-connected nodes: the map only shows nodes that have published their position on the public channel, and have set a flag that their data is okay to uplink to a server over MQTT.)
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Meshtastic has been a game changer for local off-grid comms. The barrier to entry with ESP32 LoRa boards is low enough that anyone can spin up a node in minutes. Glad to see it getting more attention here.