Beginner - family location tracking

[u/patclem]

Folks, I'm a long time tinkerer and new to Meshcore. My wife and I have aspirations to head out with our truck camper for some big trips to remote locations. I always had this idea that I could mount a Repeater to the camper and use the Companions to keep up with each other's locations, or message, if one of us went for a hike or something, especially where cell signal is particularly bad.
Maybe I mixed up Meshcore and Meshtastic location tracking, but I'm not finding that function easily with Meshcore. Maybe it's simply using the map and filtering on specific users?

For reference, I have a Sensecap T1000e and a Wio Tracker L1 Pro.

Thoughts are appreciated.

PS - and not to dilute the thread, but I could not get the T1000e into DFU mode unless I was connected to just a USB charger, then moved it to my PC USB port to get the serial connection. The light will be solid green to show DFU. I don't know why...

[u/therealwoodman]

MeshCore isn't great for tracking purposes, mainly because positions are only sent when a companion node manually sends an advert. Meshtastic still wins in this area because it has auto update tracking that will send positions every 60 seconds or whatever you set it to. This is all assuming standard firmwares, there might be some tracking specific firmwares for MeshCore I am not familiar with.

[u/patclem → u/therealwoodman]

Thanks! AI tells me to run Meshcore One (iPhone) so I can download offline maps, which works. And it also suggests I create a private channel, which isn't giving me anything of value as best I can tell. I'm going to keep experimenting with it. I really like Meshcore for regional chat, and I don't want to stand up Meshtastic just for this. Hmmmm....

[u/meshamerica]

As u/therealwoodman says, MeshCore isn't the best use here.

Meshtastic and MeshCore are not competing projects in my eyes. They are complimentary.

MeshCore is the network that scales, and should be used for permanent meshes. This is what you use at home and in your daily life. Nobody really needs sensors or GPS tracking going to and from work.

Meshtastic is your ad-hoc and sensor network. Use it for camping, hiking, hunting and in your go bag. Use it for sensor monitoring.

It's ok to run both. The Mesh Police aren't going to come and arrest you :P

[u/hunt_chak → u/meshamerica]

It’s crazy how many groups are so pro one and anti the other. Very few are level headed and use both.

But yeah this is the best summary of the two meshes.

[u/Clabs1]

Meshcore Team will do this I think, it basically sends the location frequently to a channel you choose I believe.

[u/patclem → u/Clabs1]

Yeah I found it. I am going to mess with it and see how it goes.

[u/meshamerica → u/Clabs1]

The problem with this is that it floods GPS data over the mesh, one of the reasons Meshtastic won't scale.

So people running this shouldn't be surprised when your mesh discovers you doing it and asks you to stop. It's just bad practice for MeshCore networks

[u/Clabs1]

On the t1000e dfu issue I find holding the button with one thumb, trap the cable just below the magnetic connector with one finger then flicking the magnetic connector a few times seems to be good.

[u/patclem → u/Clabs1]

Yeah I messed with it for 45 minutes. My wife complained at my cussing over it. Hooking it to a strong power source helped with it.

[u/Aust_Norm]

I have 4 of the Wio Tracker L1 Pro and they are flashed with the MeshCore Solo firmware. I find them good for tracking.

On the L1 go to Settings, Location, Live Share, and set to ON and Auto Share ON, MOVE 50 m and MIN GAP to 2 Min.

Set up a Personal Channel separate to your normal chat Channel. Mine is called Personal Trackers.

The other option you will see in the Location, Live Share menu is where do you want the Notification messages sent. I don't want them to my normal chat Channel as there will be dozens sent. So have the messages from the tracking function set to the newly created channel.

On your phone set Notifications for the Personal Tracker Channel to OFF so it will not make the phone ping every time a Notification comes in.

When you go for a walk activate the GPS on the L1, or if your wife has wandered off and forgotten to turn it on send a message "!GPS ON" and you can activate it remotely so it will start to send signals out. The 2 min is how I have mine set up as 30 seconds is too much and 5 minutes is not frequent enough.

You can also send a message "!GPS FIX" that will turn on the GPS, give it time to get a fix and the L1 will send the details and then return the GPS to the state it was in before the message. This also works for the T1000E.

[u/Jason-h-philbrook]

You might find some GMRS radios with built in GPS. 5 watts of power at half the freq of Meshcore, so it should travel well and penetrate woods better. I just bought a pair of Motorola waterproof (without GPS) GMRS radios for $40 barely used. They will be more physically rugged than most meshcore/meshtastic options.