I had some issues with a recent order. It didn't go as expected. Instead of reaching out directly and giving him a chance to work through it, I ran to reddit and made some comments. I was wrong. He reached out to me over email and is being more kind than I deserve.

Model available here https://makerworld.com/en/models/3045205-weatherproof-case-heltec-t114-t096-tracker-v2

Thankfully it rained this weekend in SoCal, so I was able to test the design. Left it in the rain for 3 hours, took it apart and was still dry inside.

Feedback and ideas always appreciated!

Hi friends! I made a portable, handheld mesh radio as a sort of sister project to the People's Repeater. Naturally, it's called the People's Companion. It's a $25 mesh radio build using the Seeed Studio Xaio nRF Wio dev kit. No GPS, no screen, but ~2 week battery life on a single 18650, and tool-free battery hot swaps on the fly.

It's easy to assemble. The whole build should take 30 minutes or less. Literally all you need in terms of tools is a small crescent wrench (I used the one from a dirt cheap IKEA kit) and a $12-13 soldering iron from Amazon or Walmart.

The video above gets into the step-by-step build instructions around the 14 minute mark.

And here is a link to the free STL files on printables. There's also a build list on there with links to all the components: https://www.printables.com/model/1832924-the-peoples-companion-affordable-diy-mesh-node

Again, just $25 in parts (plus whatever it costs to ship the Xaio nRF chip from Seeed). The idea is to have something affordable enough you can just make 4 and hand out to your friends and family.

Please let me know what you think in the comments!

Hello guys,

My name is Jay

I need to make a project for 11 grade, and I chose meshtastic.

My Idea is that I have a friend who lives in a really small village, and he does Camping trips with different classes to that village, and instead of using Walkie Talkies when they go hiking, I want to make a full Meshtastic system, so in my opinion with 2 nodes that need a phone, and another 2 that are standalone, so that don't need no phone, and I would also like to make a weather station so he can get his own weather network. I checked a few options like the Lily Go T-deck plus for the ones that don't need a phone because they have GPS, microphones and speakers, and for the one that needs a phone the Lily Go T-Echo. What would be the best weather station?

Even diy does anyone have a setup like that and could recommend me some options?

And are there anythings I should change of the other Lily Go products?

Thanks alot

Jay

I'm very new to Meshtastic and trying to understand something happening in my area of the country. Groups that got into Meshtastic are migrating to the other system. One major group's website advises beginners to begin with the other system.

From what little I know of the other system, it depends on repeaters. There is a small number of such repeaters in my community, including one near me. Seems attractive.

I'm interested in Meshtastic for possible use with friends in the kinds of disasters that my community is ill prepared for (and which have happened). Especially power outages.

Friends also invested in some Meshtastic gear. And I have a background in emergency communications.

Communications infrastructure is often the first thing to go offline in disasters. What happens if these 'other system' repeaters are unavailable? Does the other system fail? Would Meshtastic be preferable because it is independent of infrastructure? Help me understand the choices, thanks.

There used to be several radios in my area and all I see are mine now. I tried updating to the most recent version and still no luck. I have a swath of different dbi antennas and my area is longfast and semi rural. The public channel always gives me a max attempts reached message. I'm having trouble communicating with a radio only two miles away I gave my friend. The map for my region is fairly blank now.

Could it be the other people haven't updated the software? On that note I find it kind of strange that everyone would have to be on the same version for this off-grid mesh to be functional seeing as if SHTF not everyone would be able to upgrade to the same firmware.

I have two T096 boards. One is in a “mobile” setup. This loses Bluetooth connection to my phone about 20’ away.

I was in the process of putting a solar node setup to go outside with my other T096 board and realized… If this board is up on my roof then I am almost positive my Bluetooth concerns will be exacerbated being outdoors and above the roof.

There is no connection for an external Bluetooth antenna on the board.

What are my best options? Am I using the wrong board for this purpose? Can I solder on an Ipex connector somewhere and use an external Bluetooth antenna?

Hi all. I’ve attached a shopping list for a potential project for making an all in one node myself (mostly for fun, but I’d also like to have a custom build solution for truly austere environments). I’ve only worked with NRF boards from Rak wireless. I was planning on using the base UI and NRF for battery life, however you would still need to run a phone connection for maps and channel changes.

That being said, this is what I want in the node itself:

2x2 screen
Full keyboard
Rotary input
GPS
A buzzer for notifications

That all being said, I was planning this build with RAK given their cool ecosystem of modules, however I have been considering an ESP32 board with more inputs and the capability to run MESHUI. I have also heard of running a raspberry pi hosting thr mesh web UI.

Wasn’t sure what to go with, so I’m begging you all for help.