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I had never heard of this before, then last week I watched a video about it and was hooked. Now I'm seeing it everywhere!
Meshtastic and Meshcore are both cool LoRa-based mesh text messaging that operate in an no-license-required band. While this limits your transmit power, it doesn't prohibit encryption - the inverse of most ham radio rules!
Some cities have thriving communities of Meshtastic and/or Meshcore. You can look at maps of coverage to get a very general idea - in my experience, most Meshtastic nodes are NOT listed, while a good number of Meshcore nodes are.
Meshtastic treats the mesh as dynamic - clients are assumed to always be moving, so transmissions flood between different nodes that are in eachother's reach.
Meshcore has a static layer - repeaters that are assumed to be in fixed positions - and a dynamic layer - companions that move. With fixed and hopefully reliable connections between repeaters, routing paths between two users can be 'cached', which avoid the bandwidth overhead of flood routing.
You can get started with a low cost ($30) transceiver board and an SMA antenna ($10) for the ISM band of your region. Stick it in a box an mount it somewhere high up, and see if you can pick up any other nodes!
> in my experience, most Meshtastic nodes are NOT listed, while a good number of Meshcore nodes are.
I don't know about online tools, but it should be the opposite when actually using it, as by default Meshtastic is much more chatty (and wasteful) than Meshcore.
Give yourself lots of time and lots of time, oh and more time. And then more. The code is buggy and the concept as well as the code is unreliable. It’s not even as good as udp
The meshcore app is closed source
So you have the mesh and then what?
Do people communicate to distribute prohibited anti-government propaganda or is it a network of people who otherwise be too shy to talk to each other by other means?
What is the use case?
We are in the South Pacific with our sailboat, and are using Meshtastic every day to talk between ourselves and with various buddy boats. The boat has a solar-powered repeater (CLIENT_BASE) on the mast that increases communications range significantly.
This all works great with no local SIM cards or other subscriptions or infrastructure needed.
We plan to run experiments with Reticulum when we stop for the cyclone season. Reticulum would open a lot more possibilities with both LoRa and internet-based comms. The Columba app seems to do a lot to bridge the usability gap, but work will need to be done to integrate Reticulum with our boat systems the way we have with Meshtastic (alerting, telemetry, digital switching control).
Parent wrote a great blog post about this for anyone interested in the details:
https://blog.noforeignland.com/off-grid-boat-communications-...
I just bought three SenseCap T1000-E's for the exact same purpose.
Sadly I sail on the other side of the world so we likely won't be connecting.
I've always thought that meshtastic (or something similar) would be great for cruisers. Have you encountered anyone else using it?
I took a plunge into learning about mesh networks, specifically because I love the idea of p2p/decentralized systems of communication. To be honest, I was surprised to find that my expectations for “where we are at” with this type of technology was pretty off-base. For some reason I thought by now it would be straightforward to do a little more than text messaging over a truly public and decentralized off-internet mesh. Maybe I’ve missed some things in my search (still learning!) and someone can correct my understanding.
The Reticulum Network Stack is a more generic lora capable protocol. It is intended to run over almost any two way link so it's less bandwidth efficient per packet than Meshtastic but in return it gives you packet routing rather than flooding. It can be run over TCP, LoRa, WiFi, etc.
https://reticulum.network/start.html has an overview and how to connect.
There is a manual with a lot more information on how it works and the ideas behind it at https://reticulum.network/manual/ however it's quite large and not really a user friendly guide
If you just want to play with it https://reticulum.network/manual/software.html has a list of clients and software using it.
You can create a network tunnel over meshtastic with the CLI. I haven't had the time to try it but I assume it's quite slow.
The thing you missed to search for Nyquist limit as applies to the triad of battery power use vs data speed vs range. There's also error rate in the equation...
You can more or less only communicate with people agreeing with one specific tradeoff and the majority have spoken and they want slow long range texting, so you'll only be compatible with their mesh if you're compatible with that use case.
The software works fine if you set up super high bit rate, although you will not like the short range. There is no such thing as a free lunch and something like Y2K wifi speeds will have Y2K wifi ranges and battery use LOL. Also you will not mesh with other people's infrastructure if you intentionally use a modulation scheme they don't use. Its quite capable, really. But if most people want to max out their possible range and secondarily max out their battery life, it isn't going to be very fast...
I recently received my ham (Technician) license. This was mostly a result of the state of conflict between various nations, but something I've long perceived as vital for community and individual resilience and stability in difficult times.
Many are using GMRS, as it provides easy access to the entire family for $10 over ten years and requires no test. But as does most UHF/VHF or line-of-sight comms, it relies heavily on repeaters.
My handle on meshtastic, LoRa, etc, is still first impression, but I know a lot is going on here, with compelling twists and alternatives in development, eg js8call?. I'm very interested, though haven't had time to learn anything yet.
Being in Florida, which is 1) a power island 2) a hurricane magnet and burgeoning tornado scape among other vulnerabilities, resilient backup comms seems more than prudent.
I've been procrastinating and distracted, but have had the idea of learning markdown and hugo, then making a Florida ham/mesh/LoRa/gmrs/etc website designed to be highly inclusive rather than exclusive, with the hopes of getting many involved.
I don't know much yet, but the whole mesh subject is objectively fascinating and promising. I went from not knowing AM/FM to ham in two weeks of study. I'm still patching and catching up, but seriously interested.
KR4KZI 73
Hats off to you on the ham license! My friend just got hers too!
Re: markdown and hugo, that's an excellent combo. You could easily setup a raspberry pi or $5/mo vps to serve it behind caddy/traefik/nginx and have a working multipage app (mpa) in a weekend.
Or a few minutes with AI haha
I've been using Meshtastic for years. Still have a few Heltec v2 nodes running. It's been a lot of fun. It also encouraged me to get my HAM license since most of the local meshtastic/meshcore users are also in the radio clubs.
It reminds me of the early internet. In the early 90s the entire list of URLs could fill a notebook. And it was my first exposure to P2P nets. Meshtastic is a bit like that where it doesn't work well until you have a large enough community of nodes and gateways.
I tried meshtastic but there is literally nobody around me.
It's like trying to get friends to use signal. I've moved to Meshcore recently and it gets me connected to the rest of the UK. But it took me 2 dedicated repeaters.
I love the meshcore homesassitant plugin, managed to setup some alerts to send out a message on a private channel every 5 minutes if I lose power as an example.
Same. The internet isn’t fun anymore, and hasn’t been in a long time.
These local meshes remind me of BBS days. You have to know a few things to access it and the community is all the better for it.
If you're interested in Meshtastic, just try Meshcore instead. It's the natural hobbiest progression. Eventually you'll get tired of Meshtastic being nothing but telemetry from unknown nodes, nobody talks, it's a ghost town of weak links. Meshcore on the other hand has people actually having conversations, networks that span whole states, and diagnostic tools that actually work and are informative for describing the network around you.
I don't think this is quite accurate advice. Go where the activity is. Around me, in a city of ~1.5M, the Meshtastic community is quite active. They've worked with local ham radio clubs. They have members setting up a larger mesh that stretches the state from north to south. Meshcore isn't as active, although people are experimenting with it just like Meshtastic. But because Meshtastic has more local users, that's what I would recommend to people here. Meanwhile, places like the PNW and Boston have adopted Meshcore. So I might recommend new users there to try Meshcore. It's okay to have both.
This us vs them/there must be a winner attitude that I see in both communities is really toxic and unnecessary. Look at ham radio: some people use CW, some people use SSB, some people use SSTV, some people use FT8 (but not everyone! There are still hams using other digital modes), many operators dabble in a mix of the above. There are a variety of options and nobody is pressuring other operators to use a particular mode or band.
Having tried both, I definitely agree.
* MeshCore has a lot more reach than Meshtastic. Often 100+ kilometers compared to just a few kilometers. Even if MT is more popular in your area, there's a good chance that MC will give you far more actual range.
* The online node maps for both are unreliable. I don't recommend relying on them for anything.
* Meshtastic uses a basic flood algorithm, up to 3 hops by default and with a hard limit of 7. Every device works as a repeater.
* MeshCore distinguishes between Companions and Repeaters. It uses flood routing by default, and attempts to establish smarter direct routes where possible. Companions are end-user devices for sending and receiving messages. Repeaters are ideally mounted high up in a static location, and they forward packets they receive. Companions normally don't act as repeaters, but can do so if needed in off-grid situations using the "off-grid repeat" setting.
* Some are concerned about whether MeshCore is open-source. The firmware contains everything important, and is fully open-source. The official companion client app is closed-source freemium. But it's simply a GUI that talks to an API over Bluetooth, TCP, or Serial. The official CLI client is open-source, and you can use any client app you want, including the popular MeshCore-open app.
Maybe it depends? In my city, the online map shows only 2 Meshcore nodes, while Meshtastic 36 nodes.
And I've never spent time learning about it, but I'm under the impression Meshtastic is all about open-source and closer to ham radio philosophy, while Meshcore is backed by some for-profit organization?
The biggest problem with Meshtastic is that discussions about it inevitably get spammed by Meshcore evangelicals.
I assume there's no firmware that can speak both, or create a bridge?
I'm surprised there's many comments here, and so many folks even still who haven't heard of Mesh. And no real comments on them as an organization.
Mesh topology like this is cool, and the concept is cool. Meshtastic as an organization with one of their leadership being a lawyer and being very litiguous to protect their naming scheme, not so much. They go after so many projects, ideas and other things that say they are 'Meshtastic' powered. There's a whole discord of them. It is disheartening and very jarring. They want to use the moniker of M-Powered or M-PWRD which has no identity or meaning.
Somewhat related thread from the past days https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47999636 that also discusses Reticulum which is an interesting project in the same space too.
From what I could see the general vibe seems to be shifting from meshtastic to meshcore.io in the past months.
Love meshtastic. There’s something about the setup friction that has the vibe of early internet, select community, high signal, nobody trying to monetize your attention.
I have a node running 24/7 (I also happen to be hosting one of the dozen or so things network nodes in my city) and while the idea is great, the adoption is close to 0. In a city with a 2+ million residents, I see a handful of users, as in less than 10. Same with the things network actually.
Comparison of Meshtastic vs MeshCore:
https://www.seeedstudio.com/blog/2026/03/23/meshcore-vs-mesh...
There was apparently drama, should we be using this or meshcore?
Meshtastic is really cool! The heltec v4 is the best board for it you can get on Amazon.
Put it on your roof with a cheap solar panel meant for a security camera, and join it to your home WiFi.
Just use the little plastic case it came in as an enclosure. Cut a hole for the antenna and USB.
A slightly larger antenna will help. There are many on Amazon, and they’re cheap.
(I have tried lots of boards and this has been the best setup for me)
In russia they have limited internet now. something like mestastic is something everyone would need to make sure we could have communication even though someone tried to limit it.
I'd expect a group that cared about privacy and security... not to need a cookie consent dialog like that.
Check out this map: https://api.phillymesh.net/map for live data from the Philadelphia area.
The edges drawn are between nodes that have been able to hear each other in the last 24 hours, based on observed traceroute packets.
(Even then, it’s only a subset of the actually-connected nodes: the map only shows nodes that have published their position on the public channel, and have set a flag that their data is okay to uplink to a server over MQTT.)
I find it weird that the hop limit is 3 bits, wouldn't that limit the effective range a lot?
Unless an intermediate node lies and doesn't decrement and retransmits anyway.
If you setup meshtastic for the love of all that is holy reindex your channels so the public channel is 1 instead of 0. Range tests default to 0. The public channel in my area is regularly spammed with range test and is useless for any meaningful "community" communication. Instructions https://youtu.be/egAZP4KKHNo?t=419&si=s9_ML-GWEaP_bz-W
This seems like a horrible default setting or configuration. Why public channel isn't separated from a sort of control channel for those kind of station keeping messages is kind of mind boggling.
For people who don't think they have an immediate use for either meshtastic or meshcore, it's fine to disregard it and just dig in further into the capabilities of the LoRA radios used. They can be used fairly effectively for some very long reach serial bridge connections for telemetry and command/control of DIY IOT things and similar.
LoRA is also used extensively for hobby size UAV handheld controller/ground control station to air unit controls, and in its narrower channel sizes can be very long range. The well known TBS crossfire serial bridge radio system which predates LoRA by a number of years uses a chipset that is sort of an ancestor of current-gen LoRA stuff.
Meshtastic is… okay, but I was seriously put off the fact that a node can’t work with multiple clients (like phone and desktop) cooperatively, even with TCP transports. And that’s a protocol design issue, it has single client in mind. Virtual nodes didn’t work for me (I verified every configurable knob but I haven’t bothered debugging what goes on under the hood).
But it’s the only radio-based mesh network I’ve ever “seen” anyone else on.
I haven't messed with this yet, to me it seems like it could theoretically map all device locations, triangulating positions? Has that been addressed?
If anyone's interested in the really low level radio modulation bits too, you might enjoy this talk I gave at last years Defcon: https://youtu.be/SM1XSxP6W78
Benn Jordan (The Flashbulb) has a good video on this and some other interesting related topics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_F4rEaRduk
To me, one of the most interesting parts of Meshtastic is the Websphere MQ roots of MQTT and all the goodness of observability and data analysis that comes from an open message broker.
Light up MQTT-explorer and explore the default topics for a good laugh
Meshtastic has been a game changer for local off-grid comms. The barrier to entry with ESP32 LoRa boards is low enough that anyone can spin up a node in minutes. Glad to see it getting more attention here.
So many of the off-the-shelf hardware options linked to are out of stock or discontinued. Feels like DIY is the only way right now
Definitely interesting for special use cases. But I don't think the wireless carriers have anything to worry about here.
I wish they'd mention CellSol but eh.
Some software needs to be refactored and vibe coded, this is the prime example of that.
As someone interested in 3D and geometry but with no interest in radio - I find the naming clash most irritating!