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We're making an open-source $30 GPS/mesh radio, would like advice

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Re: We're making an open-source $30 GPS/mesh radio, would like advice

#141

Post by bradstewart »

deedubaya wrote: post #138

Very cool. There is a general fear in the backcountry Skiing community that any RF devices might impede or negatively impact the use of search and recovery beacons to locate buried partners in the event of an avalanche. Any documentation/speculation on any potential interference?

I dabble in both backcountry and skiing and wireless devices, but I'm not an expert on either.

My take on this: these devices should be safe to carry provided the hardware is verified to not produce spurious harmonics (via FCC certification or other means). The 900Mhz band used (in the US) by these radios will not interfere with 457KHz signals used by beacons.

I wouldn't carry it in the same pocket as my beacon, but I would use this device--definitely excited to watch the project's progress.

Re: We're making an open-source $30 GPS/mesh radio, would like advice

#142

Post by madengr »

sliken wrote: post #97
WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so cool... I spent six months doing research on a routing layer for mesh Android devices (using Bluetooth and Wifi). This would probably make a lot of what I originally tried out a lot easier. Edit: The issue was making a jump from a local cluster to another cluster far away as local messaging was easy but the further out, the harder it became to maintain connectivity since the amount of devices entering and…

My solution for this kind of thing is to support a router that connects to the internet. Then on the internet side run a DHT so all the internet routers/gateways can find each other. Each router would keep track of the devices they have seen recently, and publish them to a DHT. Much how running a bittorrent client for a particular torrent publishes that fact to the DHT so anyone on the planet can find peers of that t…

The Synapse mesh radios pretty much do this, seamlessly linking RF meshes with an IP bridge.

https://developer.synapse-wireless.com/modules/index.html

Re: We're making an open-source $30 GPS/mesh radio, would like advice

#143

Post by punkgeek »

drumttocs8 wrote: post #117
gardners wrote: post #70

Howdy, 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.

thanks. that was our motivation also.

Re: We're making an open-source $30 GPS/mesh radio, would like advice

#144

Post by punkgeek »

linuxguy2 wrote: post #129
gardners wrote: post #70

Howdy, 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

really - on www.meshtastic.org?

It is just a standard github pages page. I think you might want to check your web browser config.

Re: We're making an open-source $30 GPS/mesh radio, would like advice

#145

Post by punkgeek »

kawfey wrote: post #122
punkgeek wrote: post #2

Hi 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 sing…

FRS radios and SPOT are also awesome.

Re: We're making an open-source $30 GPS/mesh radio, would like advice

#146

Post by punkgeek »

myself248 wrote: post #132
bloopernova wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not involved with the project, but I think you can probably get this running. The hardware is cheap, the install instructions are pretty straightforward, and if you know which end of a USB cable is which, you'll be able to bumble through. Keep notes as you do, and that can feed directly into improving the documentation to be more noob-friendly. You'll find more ways to get involved from there, including just usin…

I just want to say: you seem like an awesome person. Keep being awesome!

Re: We're making an open-source $30 GPS/mesh radio, would like advice

#147

Post by punkgeek »

bloopernova wrote: post #134
myself248 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not involved with the project, but I think you can probably get this running. The hardware is cheap, the install instructions are pretty straightforward, and if you know which end of a USB cable is which, you'll be able to bumble through. Keep notes as you do, and that can feed directly into improving the documentation to be more noob-friendly. You'll find more ways to get involved from there, including just usin…

I'm adding myself to the Gitter channel and will hook up a radio to my home office Raspberry Pi. I'm excited to be a part of this! :) Thanks for the encouragement, by the way. I really appreciate that.

yep - what myself248 said. and yes, if you have questions just ask on the gitter channel and we'll all work together to help.

Re: We're making an open-source $30 GPS/mesh radio, would like advice

#148

Post by punkgeek »

sliken wrote: post #93
punkgeek wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, this is targeted at hikers etc... so typical max mesh size of about 20 and I bet it would dying by the time a channel had 100 people.

Why? Even 200 in a small area, say a ski resort, mountain bike race, or similar seems perfectly reasonable. Sure not 200 people typing as fast as they can, but plenty for the normal chatter I hear over sms. Especially if you keep the messages short and have a latency of a few minutes be acceptable. Using the family radios (often $30 ish) on hiking trails, parks, amusement parks, etc. I usually hear minimal chatter, j…

a channel in this case is a set of friends who are on one common preshared key (and a hopping set of frequencies). So each mesh only cares about (or even sees) packets on that mesh.

Lora is quite a slow bitrate protocol (but it has _great_ range and super low power needs). So we are focusing on our smaller use-case at first (in the interest of speed of development and stability for users)

Re: We're making an open-source $30 GPS/mesh radio, would like advice

#149

Post by punkgeek »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #89

I’m interested, but we’ll see how it goes. This is a non-trivial endeavor. I’ve been trying to write an open-source Apple driver for goTenna units, and have been unable to get them to help me out by providing their BLE spec. That’s a shame, because I write really nice SDKs. Even if my driver was open and free, it would provide significant brand reinforcement. Win-win. I believe that this tech is important, as it can…

The current alpha works pretty well. (I'm sort of retired now, but my old job included writing software for these sorts of radios).

If you'd like to play with this project we'd love your help (and we have a documented ble api).

Here's an issue where various iOS types are ideating on possibly making an iOS app: https://github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-esp32/issues/14

Re: We're making an open-source $30 GPS/mesh radio, would like advice

#150

Post by punkgeek »

maufl wrote: post #91

This is awesome! It looks like it could do several things for which I wanted to have a device. Offline GPS tracker with very long run time for hiking. I'd like up to one month run time. On the other hand I only need low time resolution, one waypoint each minute. It also does not need to send the location anywhere, storing it local is fine. Offline/Online GPS tracker for paragliding. Battery for one day, but also high…

current battery life is about 3 days and will soon be eight days. See our power calculations spreadsheet, but with with scheduled broadcast intervals (because we have GPS time) it is fairly feasible to reach 30 days between charging.

I'm also a (retired, but formerly very active) paraglider and that was a big motivator for me.

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