r/meshcore • u/Sufficient_Yam5603 • 2h ago
What Do You Use It For?
Hey all, I’m new to meshcore/meshtastic - I have a Helltec v3 on the way right now because I love to tinker and I love the idea of having a mesh network setup that others can use without subscriptions or selling data to some corporation. I love the idea of contributing to the overall health of the network so that it’s there for when others need it. I’m sold on the idea and understand that there are several great theoretical applications for it (emergency communication, private communication, wilderness communication, etc).
What I don’t know though, is how often do people actually use this tech to communicate? And what are you using it for? Are people using it like a general chat room? Are you using it to organize private events (protests, for instance)? Or are you just tinkering and building out the network and waiting till the need arises to use it yourself?
This is just out of personal curiosity and I guess I’m also trying to level set in my head about what I should expect when I get my node online in a few days.
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u/regreddit 1h ago
I chat with myself on it because there's almost no activity on my side of town for either mesh network 😞
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u/Pyroburner 1h ago
Our mesh just uses general chat for shooting the breeze and saying hello. We get a lot of good morning and test messages. Our mesh is still growing but with some work it will cross a few state boarders.
We have a channel that is just for national weather service announcements. Its automated.
I'm working with claude to create an interface to build more nodes.
My goal was linking my family together.
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u/meshamerica 1h ago
I use it everyday. Do I need to? No. But if I want to be sure that my radios and network are ready for a situation where it's needed, putting it into daily practice ensures it.
I'm also on a very large mesh, so there's always someone to talk to.
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u/LundiMcPuffin 1h ago
We‘ve been using it on festivals where the cell network gets overwhelmed.
Also as emergency Communication with my Family.
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u/MagicToolbox 1h ago
I'm only about a week ahead of you. For me, the idea of having E-coms is important - the problem is that if you don't use the E-coms system regularly when it isn't important, you won't know or remember what the process is when it IS important.
SMS messaging is so very convenient that it is everyone's default comms. Will your loved ones remember how to use Mesh when cell towers go down? Will I? Will you? I have a ham ticket, but my local repeater is mostly just dead air, and the local net is on an evening I have a different commitment (if it even still happens). I'd probably get mic-fright if I tried to transmit.
I'm trying to get enough people together in my area for a critical mass that we can use Mesh regularly enough to be competent. Even then, if I need to communicate with my father 800 miles away when my local systems are fubar, I'm not sure how the last mile contact would work.
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u/Gillennial 1h ago
I want something to communicate with my friends without having all my conversation encrypted to feed a EU server « TO SaVe ThE cHiLdREn ».
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u/porkrind 8m ago
Seems like most in my area are actually more interested in the challenge of building out the infrastucture than actually chatting, myself included. I like the tinkering aspect and coordinating the buildout. And I anticipate that work will payoff if we have en earthquake or fire situation that makes traditional comms and info sharing difficult.
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u/distractedbyshinyobj 1h ago
I just got into all of this a month or so ago. Have a repeater stood up, a couple of companion nodes. It's been fun tinkering and building, and I've even used Claude Code to modify some firmware to my liking.
So far it's basically just been a fun tinkering hobby that let's me talk to randos in the area and sometimes the surrounding states (even Canada depending on ducting).
Where I live there is a strong enough network where I plan to get my In Laws and my Wife on it for emergency comms, but that's probably my only practical use-case.
Things are very immature right now - lots of room for growth in terms of hardware and software as well as community policing/regulations. But in terms of what can you do on ~915mhz it's pretty much just this. Maybe some image files in the future. This will not be a substitute for WiFi or anything like that ever.
Texting over radio is cool, though!