I'm just curious why my comment regarding patent was deleted ? Yes we developed a device that implements this same idea of sharing GPS data over mesh (868 ISM) network and patented it in 2014. The patent is still valid and supported. If someone is interested in further development of this idea, please contact me, we would be happy to sell this patent along with schematics and source codes for fair price.
We're making an open-source $30 GPS/mesh radio, would like advice
121–130 of 176 posts
Re: We're making an open-source $30 GPS/mesh radio, would like advice
#122Hi ya'll, so we've spent a few weeks making device software and an android app to convert a $30 chinese gps/radio into a long range mesh radio for hikers. It is working fairly well now (though still an alpha) and we'd love more people to try it and/or have fun coding on it. We got about 30 users (and some devs from this hackaday article) but we'd love more users and devs to join this happy-happy project: https://hack…
Radio amateurs might be some suitable beta testers for you. It being an open source radio system fits right into the mission and spirit of amateur radio.
However, I'll take the cynical route and say mesh radios, for the general public, are still not very popular. Gotenna and Beartooth, among others appear to be common and popular, and highly reviewed, but in my hikes and ski trips, I haven't seen or heard from a single one. I've seen FAR more basic FRS radios, and SPOT satellite messengers.
Re: We're making an open-source $30 GPS/mesh radio, would like advice
#123I'm just curious why my comment regarding patent was deleted ? Yes we developed a device that implements this same idea of sharing GPS data over mesh (868 ISM) network and patented it in 2014. The patent is still valid and supported. If someone is interested in further development of this idea, please contact me, we would be happy to sell this patent along with schematics and source codes for fair price.
Raising awareness that something is patented on a public forum isn't considered polite.
Knowledge of something being patented changes potential damages to punitive damages, making potential lawsuit costs 3x.
Hence, nearly all tech industries prevent discussion of patent specifics outside forums designed for patent discussion. Otherwise anyone who reads this page is increasing their liability 3x, which isn't what HN wants to inflict on its users.
Re: We're making an open-source $30 GPS/mesh radio, would like advice
#124This is very similar to FLARM devices ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLARM ) for ultralights, gliders, etc. This is already broadly deployed (at least in Europe). You could check for any lessons learned there. I think you can discount any flight users, because they would like to be seen too by other airplanes.
FLARM is very bad example especialy for DIY community. They have proprietary chips, firmware and are running non opensourced protocol. Also they are actively trying to prevent reverse engineering with cryptography and killing old/diy devices with protocol timebombs...
Yes, I am also not enthusiastic about the crypto part, but then if it prevents people from spoofing signals, it is probably a good decision.
The wikipedia suggests they use standard hardware components?
Re: We're making an open-source $30 GPS/mesh radio, would like advice
#125How is it offering 'private' communications on the 33cm band? Does this band even offer good performance in hilly or mountainous terrain? These would be short range line of sight only type devices, correct? I'm still fairly new to amateur radio so I could be off. I don't see the advantage of this over something like APRS on 2M, with the exception that you don't need a license.
encryption is allowed for low duty cycle digital usage on that band. I'm also a ham and really into APRS. But not requiring a license is a big plus, also the way these chirping radios achieve their long range with a super high noise floor so the battery life is amazing. i.e. a TTGO TBEAM will run for about eight days on (including the GPS/radio and CPU). And $30 for that board.
Thanks for the reply! There is SO much to learn in this hobby. I'll definitely be following this project.
Re: We're making an open-source $30 GPS/mesh radio, would like advice
#126This is awesome, thanks for sharing! I'm considering using this for a project where I need to measure distance between two nodes. Couple questions: 1. You mention "location and distance" between member nodes. I assume this is based on the LORA RSSI? How precise is the reading? 2. Do you support the "TTGO LORA32"? Your Github Readme mentions it, but Pages does not. 3. Will the TTGO LORA32 and Heltec LoRa 32 measure di…
If the nodes have GPS it's fairly straightforward to calculate distance and bearing.
Right, and accuracy of ~9m makes sense for this application. The smaller supported ESP32's, however, don't have onboard GPS. Does it use RSSI or need to be paired with a phone?
Not that it's really relevant here, but I'm wondering if the LORA RSSI can be used to determine distance inside 9m.
Re: We're making an open-source $30 GPS/mesh radio, would like advice
#127I guess my only advice is make sure the software keeps to the duty cycle limits of the license free band. And note that different countries may have different regulations on what is allowed on the frequency LoRa uses, if using it is even allowed.
Oh yes, totally agree. We have a rough duty cycle spreadsheet now and we will be careful to obey the rules ;-)
That's the nice thing about 915 in the US, it's basically do-whatever. Not the case with 315/433, though!
I'm a huge fan of 900MHz meshes, and have a basement full of Ricochet hardware. Starmode chat was the coolest thing in the world, but GPS's were expensive back then, so mobile nodes didn't know where they were. Stationary routers were programmed with their lat/lon when they were installed, and the MCDN mesh did geographic (distance-bearing) routing within them.
On the Meshtastic site, it says the TTgo board is recommended "for most users", without saying why. It looks like this is because the GPS is built into the TTgo board but not the Heltec, but this isn't clearly explained. I picked up a few of the Heltec boards recently, because they were much more commonly available. I assume I can tack on a GPS to some random UART pins and tweak some pin assignments in a header file somewhere?
If I have stable power and a high point somewhere, I'd be interested in running a repeater node that helps _everyone_'s traffic, not just my own friends who have the same encryption key loaded or whatever. Is there a way to do that, or can that be added as a feature request?
Is there support for arbitrary data transport over the Lora layer; could I ssh from my phone, across the meshtstic lora, to my desktop at home sitting near another node?
Re: We're making an open-source $30 GPS/mesh radio, would like advice
#128Howdy, as the founder of the Serval Mesh adhoc networking protocols and hardware, what I would look for in a new radio is: 1. True packet radio mode, that doesn't hide the radioness of the link etc, but lets the programmer use it's strengths. 2. UART link, ideally using 3DR/RFD900 compatible connector (then we can include it directly in our existing systems, and so can others). 3. Field-flashable, but with robust pro…
Upvoted for the deep knowledge shared here- but as a consumer, I don't know enough to care anything about any of that. I think a mesh radio that keeps us all together on a hike, festival, or emergency situation sounds pretty cool, and being open and extensible makes it even better.
As a fellow consumer who doesn't have the knowledge to contribute to this space, I really wish I could offer something to help out with these efforts.
The idea of a secondary low bandwidth Internet being robust to interference from goverment and disasters? That stuff is true cyberpunk to me.
Re: We're making an open-source $30 GPS/mesh radio, would like advice
#129Howdy, as the founder of the Serval Mesh adhoc networking protocols and hardware, what I would look for in a new radio is: 1. True packet radio mode, that doesn't hide the radioness of the link etc, but lets the programmer use it's strengths. 2. UART link, ideally using 3DR/RFD900 compatible connector (then we can include it directly in our existing systems, and so can others). 3. Field-flashable, but with robust pro…
I checked out the page you linked and it doesn't load very well. FYI
* No http -> https redirect
* Broken layout when forced to https
* Play store link 404's
* Icon on the download button is broken
Re: We're making an open-source $30 GPS/mesh radio, would like advice
#130Hi ya'll, so we've spent a few weeks making device software and an android app to convert a $30 chinese gps/radio into a long range mesh radio for hikers. It is working fairly well now (though still an alpha) and we'd love more people to try it and/or have fun coding on it. We got about 30 users (and some devs from this hackaday article) but we'd love more users and devs to join this happy-happy project: https://hack…
Is there anything I, as a sysadmin-by-experience, can do to help out?
I don't have any relevant skills for radio or SDR stuff, but I'd love to mess around with it for a couple of hours a week.