Is anyone here fucking around with Meshtastic or some similar LoRa based communication thing?I've come across Meshtastic today, fell into a bit of a rabbit hole and now I kind of want to get some aliexpress transceiver if only to play with it for a bit.Naturally I'm imagining situations where it could be very useful, but any connection between the truth and the justifications I come up with for a new toy is entirely coincidental.Do you regularly talk to anyone with it?Did you ever make use of it in a situation where a cellular network isn't available?
>>106492788>in a situation where a cellular network isn't availableseeing as starlink is growing and 6g is going sattelite... this probalby isnt going to ever be somehing for non hobbiests.normies will just keep sending green and blue bubbles
>>106492978>seeing as starlink is growing and 6g is going sattelite... this probalby isnt going to ever be somehing for non hobbiests.Granted, only hobbyists would bother with this stuff regardless, but starlink and satellite-based-6g still have certain linchpins, I wouldn't say centralized communication is about to be "solved" anytime soon.>normies will just keep sending green and blue bubblesfuck em
>>106492788The kind of retards making these things are the last people on earth I'd want to talk to
>>106492788Seems like a neat idea, but the fact that the protocol has no ability to scale up meaningfully will keep it a toy instead of anything useful. Growth will kill it if it doesn't get a proper means of packet routing.>captchaFitting
>>106492788I've got a T-Deck Plus, and they're pretty fun. It all depends on whether anyone near you actually has one. I'd check https://meshmap.net to see if there's anyone around. Otherwise, you'll have spent however much money on something that no one else uses. Also, depending on where you live, you'll need to get a different antenna. For North America, you'll need an antenna capable of transmitting on 915 MHz, and if you live in Europe, you can either use 868 MHz or 443 MHz (which absolutely no one uses, don't bother.) Just have a look around and see what you need depending on your use case and location.
>>106493663Sorry, 433 MHz. I'm a little drunk.
>>106492788Texting over radio signals seems cool but I don't have a usecase for it. I do offroading with friends and talking over radio is already established and much easier to do while driving.Maybe if we could send images too people would want to use it. I read meshcore is seeing a lot more progress because meshtastic devs are digging in their heels on new features, not sure how accurate that is but something to consider.>>106493663>meshmap.netYeah I'm in a deadzone, nothing inside of 10 miles from me. I'd have to travel to talk to people or convince my group to use this instead of normal radio.
>>106493728In fairness, this map only shows people who've recently connected over MQTT. There very well could be people around you who just aren't connected to the main MQTT mesh. Either that, or a lot of people don't choose to share their locations, for obvious reasons. I'd say it's worth a shot nonetheless, I'd just use a cheaper bit of hardware like a Heltec V3.
>>106493796>this map only shows people who've recently connectedThat's a good point I didn't consider. One of my offroad friends birthday is coming up, I think I'll get a couple heltec v3s and gift him one.I just thought of a usecase for texting over radio, one of the guys ate shit on a dirtbike going out alone and got the wind knocked out of him. Couldn't call in for help for like 15 minutes and by the time we got there he was mostly recovered and could ride back himself. I think some kind of backup SOS with meshtastic would be good since it transmits location data too and we could hoist up a tall antenna at the basecamp for wide coverage.
>>106493663How's the range between nodes?Reading up I hear a lot about "line of sight" but surely it's not as anal as it sounds, right?Is there a significant difference between using your thing indoors and outdoors?
>>106494035>How's the range between nodes?Anything "line of sight" is a red flag.The power output in these devices is about 22 dB, which is about 158 milliwatts. There are 1000 milliwatts in a watt. The cheapest Baofeng radio puts out 5 watts. So does a CB radio. Both are in widespread use.LoRa, not so much.Amateur radio guys using low power digital modes like FT8 or JS8Call on the HF bands are texting cross-country on 5 watts.
>>106493620maybe it's not FOR replacing global communications and the internetit seems like you can get a lot done with this by working with its limitations instead of trying to fight them
>>106494423From what I've read they can reach >10km with line of sight but it's not a lighthouse flickering in binary, it still works past some obstructions, just worse.That's why I asked the guy what it's like
>>106494571>10kmI'm sure it's possible with a multi element yagi.Still, you have to hit a lot of relays for coast to coast comms.>lighthouse flickering in binary"one if by land, two if by sea"
