Meshtastic-esp32

This is the device side code for the meshtastic.org project.

Meshtastic is a project that lets you use inexpensive GPS mesh radios as an extensible, super long battery life mesh GPS communicator. These radios are great for hiking, skiing, paragliding - essentially any hobby where you don't have reliable internet access. Each member of your private mesh can always see the location and distance of all other members and any text messages sent to your group chat.

The radios automatically create a mesh to forward packets as needed, so everyone in the group can receive messages from even the furthest member. The radios will optionally work with your phone, but no phone is required.

Typical time between recharging the radios should be about eight days.

This project is currently pre-alpha, but if you have questions please join our chat: .

This software is 100% open source and developed by a group of hobbyist experimenters. No warranty is provided, if you'd like to improve it - we'd love your help. Please post in the chat.

Meshtastic Android app

The source code for the Meshtastic Android app is here. Soon our first alpha release of will be released here:

Supported hardware

We currently support two brands of radios. The TTGO T-Beam and the Heltec LoRa 32. Most users should buy the T-Beam and a 18650 battery (total cost less than $35). Make sure to buy the frequency range which is legal for your country. For the USA, you should buy the 915MHz version. Getting a version that include a screen is optional, but highly recommended.

We don't yet distribute prebuilt binaries. But soon (by Feb 22) we will have a file that you can fairly easilly install on your radio via USB. Once our software is installed, all future software updates happen over bluetooth from your phone.

For a nice 3D printable case see this design by bsiege.

Development

The following sections are probably only interesting if you want to join us in developing the software.

Power measurements

Since one of the main goals of this project is long battery life, it is important to consider that in our software/protocol design. Based on initial measurements it seems that the current source base should run about three days between charging, and with a bit more software work (see the TODO list) a battery life of eight days should be quite doable. Our current power measurements/model is in this spreadsheet.

Build instructions

This project uses the simple PlatformIO build system. You can use the IDE, but for brevity in these instructions I describe use of their command line tool.

1. Purchase a suitable radio (about $30 from aliexpress)
2. Install PlatformIO.
3. Download this git repo and cd into it.
4. Plug the radio into your USB port.
5. Type "pio run -t upload" (This command will fetch dependencies, build the project and install it on the board via USB).
6. Platform IO also installs a very nice VisualStudio Code based IDE, see their tutorial if you'd like to use it.