Isn't there an open source Android mesh network? Based on Wifi or Bluetooth? I thought I heard about mesh networks being used in protests years ago...? Do we still not have something viable?
Meshtastic: An open source, off-grid, decentralized, mesh network
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Re: Meshtastic: An open source, off-grid, decentralized, mesh network
#12Isn't there an open source Android mesh network? Based on Wifi or Bluetooth? I thought I heard about mesh networks being used in protests years ago...? Do we still not have something viable?
Re: Meshtastic: An open source, off-grid, decentralized, mesh network
#13Is it feasible to create a mesh network using Bluetooth on participating smart phones? In crowded places like college campuses, we could run campus IM on it for instance
All these mesh networks have a max hop limit, to prevent messages from bouncing around the network repeatably, but also not guaranteeing messages reach their destination. Meshtastic defaults to 3. Gotenna I believe is also Lora and is also 3. Bridgefy is bluetooth and has a 250 max hop limit, but also a 7d TTL, basically not close to real-time.
It could be made better by having statically position nodes that keep track of the nodes it can reach. And then having all these statically positioned nodes communicate with each other on a different wireless spectrum so you don't interfere with regular nodes. Since that topology isn't changing, you can efficiently route message between them. Now that's basically just regular wifi mesh.
Re: Meshtastic: An open source, off-grid, decentralized, mesh network
#14Before anyone gets too excited about this - half duplex/TDD-like mesh radio systems with omnidirectional antennas are one of the LEAST efficient possible ways of building a wireless village/town scale IP network. The thing about an omni antenna talking to another omni is that an omnidirectional antenna is also a 360 degree noise gatherer, and gathers traffic/timeslot occuyping stuff that might be coming from other, s…
Re: Meshtastic: An open source, off-grid, decentralized, mesh network
#15Before anyone gets too excited about this - half duplex/TDD-like mesh radio systems with omnidirectional antennas are one of the LEAST efficient possible ways of building a wireless village/town scale IP network. The thing about an omni antenna talking to another omni is that an omnidirectional antenna is also a 360 degree noise gatherer, and gathers traffic/timeslot occuyping stuff that might be coming from other, s…
It's text messaging with channels, some provisions for nodes transmitting sensor data, and some location data.
It's not intended to provide TCP/IP networking.
Re: Meshtastic: An open source, off-grid, decentralized, mesh network
#16Re: Meshtastic: An open source, off-grid, decentralized, mesh network
#17If so, what was its purpose and why this technology over others?
Re: Meshtastic: An open source, off-grid, decentralized, mesh network
#18Re: Meshtastic: An open source, off-grid, decentralized, mesh network
#19Before anyone gets too excited about this - half duplex/TDD-like mesh radio systems with omnidirectional antennas are one of the LEAST efficient possible ways of building a wireless village/town scale IP network. The thing about an omni antenna talking to another omni is that an omnidirectional antenna is also a 360 degree noise gatherer, and gathers traffic/timeslot occuyping stuff that might be coming from other, s…
That's a whole lot of commenting from someone who clearly doesn't know what meshtastic is. It's text messaging with channels, some provisions for nodes transmitting sensor data, and some location data. It's not intended to provide TCP/IP networking.
Re: Meshtastic: An open source, off-grid, decentralized, mesh network
#20Has anyone deployed and used a system like this here? If so, what was its purpose and why this technology over others?
The scenarios are:
1. Your country is invaded, and you are building a resistance.
2. Your government becomes a dictatorship. You want to fight back.
3. Natural disasters: the grid and mobile network are down. You want to organize and work together to help each other.
Meshtastic nicely blends into the existing IoT LoRa traffic. And give you some sort of invisibility.Other scenarios are similar to ham radio - asking other dudes about the weather.