Meshtastic - decentralized & off-grid mesh network

[dredger]

Hello,

A friend of mine recently talked to me about "meshtastic", and some youtube video he watched, mainly in UK.
I just had the time to look at this a few minutes before, this means that i know nothing on the topic except what my friend told me during 5 to 10 minutes - in fact, i didn't even know how to write it correctly, but after a few tries on google i found the right spelling.

So this first post is just to introduce it the topic, as i have no experience on it.
It's one more topic for which i would like to be in measure to multiply myself, but unfortunately i can't (yet ?) bilocate (reference to last session )

All i can summarize is that such initiative does not (certainly) much please the PTB.

I suppose one can find all the information he needs on the following website :

Meshtastic

An open source, off-grid, decentralized, mesh network built to run on affordable, low-power devices

meshtastic.org

Short definition :
An open source, off-grid, decentralized, mesh network built to run on affordable, low-power devices

Longer definition :
Meshtastic® is a project that enables you to use inexpensive LoRa radios as a long range off-grid communication platform in areas without existing or reliable communications infrastructure. This project is 100% community driven and open source!

(you can find this definition + more information on the website, the Introduction page and others)

I can't say now how efficient it would do/work, maybe @Scottie would like to have a look a it. I wonder if it would allow anyone for instance at LeChateau to use their own smartphone but all the calls are done using the meshtastic network. What i undestood is that, a bit like the other post about Yaci, the more it would spread (here more physicially on a delimited territory), the larger the area under which one could contact another one using this parrallel network will increase. There are already quite a lot video on youtube when one search on it.

That's all so far, mission one (introduce the topic) completed

Now, if some techies here have the time to dig into and report here their experience, tests, etc ... at least, we have now a thread dedicated to this, keyword being "Meshtastic"

 

[Brewer]

Hello,

A friend of mine recently talked to me about "meshtastic", and some youtube video he watched, mainly in UK.
I just had the time to look at this a few minutes before, this means that i know nothing on the topic except what my friend told me during 5 to 10 minutes - in fact, i didn't even know how to write it correctly, but after a few tries on google i found the right spelling.

So this first post is just to introduce it the topic, as i have no experience on it.
It's one more topic for which i would like to be in measure to multiply myself, but unfortunately i can't (yet ?) bilocate (reference to last session )

All i can summarize is that such initiative does not (certainly) much please the PTB.

I suppose one can find all the information he needs on the following website :

Meshtastic

An open source, off-grid, decentralized, mesh network built to run on affordable, low-power devices

meshtastic.org

Short definition :
An open source, off-grid, decentralized, mesh network built to run on affordable, low-power devices

Longer definition :
Meshtastic® is a project that enables you to use inexpensive LoRa radios as a long range off-grid communication platform in areas without existing or reliable communications infrastructure. This project is 100% community driven and open source!

(you can find this definition + more information on the website, the Introduction page and others)

I can't say now how efficient it would do/work, maybe @Scottie would like to have a look a it. I wonder if it would allow anyone for instance at LeChateau to use their own smartphone but all the calls are done using the meshtastic network. What i undestood is that, a bit like the other post about Yaci, the more it would spread (here more physicially on a delimited territory), the larger the area under which one could contact another one using this parrallel network will increase. There are already quite a lot video on youtube when one search on it.

That's all so far, mission one (introduce the topic) completed

Now, if some techies here have the time to dig into and report here their experience, tests, etc ... at least, we have now a thread dedicated to this, keyword being "Meshtastic"

Hello, my brother has been doing Meshtastic and LoRa for a few years now. He sets up a horizontal antenna in our backyard, plugs a cheap 5 watt walkie talkie into the center of it and sends text messages all over by bouncing the signal off the Earth and into the ionosphere. From there it bounces all over the globe, his phone communicates with the radio and vice versa using Bluetooth. Failing that phone and radio communicate using beeps and whistles and sound much like a fax or a dial up modem.

 

[rognaill]

While not specific to the Meshtastic platform, in the US (and other locations within the FCC service territory) the mesh technology that is seeing an uptick in personal use that protected from the commercial carriers is GMRS (General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS)) while in Europe the equivalent is PMR (Mobile and Private Mobile Radio).

Not sure on the European protection of the channels for PMR, but it is similar to GMRS. Both radios are decently available and allow for simple private PTT comms over as large of an area you want to build. Ideal for rural and out of band communications when not wanting to to rely on commercial carriers.

Each can support layers of encryption, but keep in mind that a saying I have been using for a long time now is: "If something starts as a 1 and a 0, it can be taken back down to a 1 and a 0". Just depends on what level of effort either party wants to expend to intercept.

Blockchain models such as Meshtastic seem to be interesting but susceptible to network disruptions. (RE: Why is crypto only secure by way of "cold storage" aka taking off the network altogether)