Meshtastic Problems - And Another Off Grid Messaging System

This message is sent directly between these two  phones completely off grid without using any Wi-Fi   or Cellular Connection each phone is connected  to a small cheap battery powered radio device   and those radio devices can communicate with each  other by adding more devices they automatically   form a mes that messages can jump through over  long distances this is known as Meshtastic Meshtastic has become quite popular  recently so let's take a look at   how it works first theoretically and  then practically and then later on I   will tell you about an even better  off grid alternative to Meshtastic I'm standing in a field and I yell out my  name is sn0ren repeat this message three times   just within earshot of me is another person  who hears my message and yells out I just   heard a guy named sn0ren repeat this message two  times within ear shut of the second person is a   third person who repeats the message as well  which is heard by a fourth person that repeats   it the final time this way the message  propagates way beyond my ability to yell Meshtastic is it's basically a bunch of small  devices that just yell out and repeat short   messages they do not negotiate a network  connection in the traditional sense it's   much more simple than that this is a remote  controlled outlet when I push this button a   radio signal is transmitted with a simple encoded  value that tells the outlet to turn on or off we   can even copy this signal with a flipper zero  and play it back whenever a manufacturer wants   to make a device that needs to communicate  wirelessly like doorbells weather stations   or remote controls they need to find some radio  frequency to do this on the problem is that there   is a finite amount of space in the radio spectrum  and in this limited amount of space there needs   to be room for police fire and rescue airplanes  ships GPS cell phones Wi-Fi satellites and lots   of other wireless communication and each type of  communication needs to stay in their own dedicated   lane so that we don't get interference across  the signals and cause frustrating costly or even   dangerous situations because of this all radio  transmissions are strictly regulated worldwide   no one can transmit anywhere without permission  devices such as the remote control outlet use   a license-free radio band known as ISM which is  short for industrial scientific and medical which   is the original usage intent for these frequencies  although they are now used for many other   different purposes Wi-Fi and Bluetooth also use  some of these ISM bands there are several of these   license-free narrow lanes located in between other  frequency allocations manufacturers can develop   devices that use these frequency without the  user having to obtain a transmitting license as   long as the devices adhere to the internationally  agreed upon limitations of low power output and   limited transmit duration to make sure that they  do not interfere with other devices using the same   frequencies usually the distances needed by remote  controls sensors and doorbells are fairly short so   these limitations of power output are just fine  for this purpose these devices typically encode   their signals as some form of simple frequency  shift keying or on/off keying which you can   think of as being basically morse code but a  bit faster and controlled by a small computer this is where the term LoRa or long range comes  in it's the technology used by Meshtastic that   makes it different from regular short range  ISM devices LoRa is a modulation type developed   and patented by the company Cycleo in 2014 it  uses something called a chirp spread spectrum   technology which is much more robust against noise  and low signal strength than regular FSK or OOK   since it allows for decoding much weaker signals  it enables the radio signals to be heard at much   longer distances while still adhering to the low  power output requirements of the license-free ism   bands instead of just controlling a lamp across  the room now a farmer can have a humidity sensor   in a field at the other side of his farm remotely  monitored through a LoRa signal and since the   power output is still really low they can run off  small power sources like solar panels however the   amount of data you can transfer is also very small  LoRa is usable for short text messages not larger   data streaming such as video or sound you can  buy LoRa modules intended for DIY or prototyping   projects for very cheap online they consist of the  LoRa radio module and some sort of programmable   microcontroller like an ESP 32 meshtastic is a  firmware developed to run on some of these devices   on the meshtastic website you can see what devices  are supported by the meshtastic firmware I've got   a few different devices here be sure to get one  that works on the frequency used in your region   they can all be powered on by simply plugging in  a USB cable but they can also run off batteries   remember not to power on the device without  having an antenna connected as the module   could be damaged otherwise having access to a  3D printer to print a case and the soldering   iron to solder on a battery connector will make  it a lot easier to play around with Meshtastic   devices flashing the Meshtastic firmware to  a device is easily done by using the online   flasher and connecting the device through USB  once the device has been flashed the easiest   way to connect to it is using the Meshtastic app  available for both IOS and Android the initial   setup requires you to select what region you are  in this is because the ism band regulations are   slightly different depending on where in the world  you live in Europe it's most common to use the 868   MHz band while in the US it's around 906 MHz this  is technically all the configuration you need to   do to get started with Meshtastic in the app you  can now navigate to the tab called nodes and see   all other Meshtastic nodes within range of your  device and send messages between them most likely   this list of nodes will be completely empty and  this is where we have to talk about the use cases   for Meshtastic if you are a group going camping  or hiking out in the forest or mountains each of   your friends could carry with them a meshtastic  device and this would enable to message each   other without having to rely on spotty cell phone  coverage you can even see the location of each   device and the range and direction if they enable  location sharing some LoRa devices have a built-in   GPS but that's only really needed if you're not  going to use their device with the phone since   you can also just transmit the location from  your phone's GPS however some enthusiasts also   want to use meshtastic to create larger mesh  networks covering cities or even larger areas   to create an off-grid alternative to commercial  networks or for use in emergencies this is   possible by setting up unmanned nodes in higher  up locations with the primary purpose of repeating   messages to other nodes within range radio  communication is mostly line of sight so if   you're walking around in a city at street level  and want to send a meshtastic message to your   friend a few blocks away the message will probably  not reach your friend because it's blocked by the   buildings trees or hills that are in the way but  if there is a node on top of a tall building that   both of you can hear yelling above the rooftops  this node can repeat your messages so that they   reach your friend if there are several nodes  high up they can hear each other and repeat   messages over a much larger area and as long  as your personal node can reach one of the   high up nodes you can send messages through these  without needing to have your own personal node be   up high I have set up such a node dedicated for  repeating packages on my apartment balcony this   is a wisblock from RAK Wireless running off  a lithium iron battery powered by a 5w solar   panel using a homemade ground plane antenna  the wisblock device requires much less power   than an ESP32 device and has run easily over  a month from nothing but solar power even in   overcast and rainy weather this allows me to  reach other nodes in my city area when I'm   sitting on my couch or walking around downtown  carrying with me my personal node and it expands   the total coverage of other local nodes there  are some problems that you need to be aware   of before diving head first into establishing a  huge Meshtastic Network first of all you need to   realise that this is a young open-source project  in Rapid development with frequent new updates   that need to be flashed to the devices  not everything works all the time I've   experienced several weird bugs and random crashes  and needed to manually restart devices which can   be problematic if you've mounted it high up  in a hard to reach place and if we truly were   in an emergency situation if you hadn't already  downloaded the Meshtastic app or if you've lost   or broken your phone you probably would not be  able to use the Meshtastic devices it is possible   to plug in a Meshtastic device to a computer and  use a web interface although it is lacking some   features one way of solving this would be to  have a standalone device that does not need a   phone to function this is the Lilygo T-Deck it is  technically a standalone Meshtastic capable device   that allows you to use its keyboard to write  messages negating the need for a phone however   as of the making of this video the meshtastic  software for the t-deck is unfortunately severely   limited you cannot configure the device without  a computer or phone there is no message history   and the way the software reads the keyboard input  is so painfully slow that you lose any advantage   the physical keyboard could have provided I  cannot fault an open source project for not   having perfected the software for this specific  device yet out of all the devices Meshtastic runs   on but there certainly is a lot of unresolved  potential for the T-deck another problem with   larger meshtastic networks is congestion if you  manage to convince all your friends to cover   your city in Meshtastic noes you might run into  another problem too many data packets every time   a node announces its presence and every time you  send a message and every time a node transmits   Telemetry all of this is repeated again and again  and again by all the local nodes it can cause so   much traffic that messages are transmitted on top  of each other and are lost preventing the network   from working you can tweak the settings of your  note to lower the chance of this happening like   disabling repeating received packages if your node  isn't placed up high but a single badly configured   node can cause a lot of problems by default your  packages are repeated three times and this is the   limit of how far your messages can travel you can  increase this to a maximum of seven hops but this   is not advisable in most cases in Europe the ism  band regulation requires a device to not transmit   more than 10% of the time in an hour on the LoRa  frequency if you reach this threshold your device   will go completely silent this is one of the  problems of using this license-free frequency   allocation for large mess networks that it was  never intended to be used for another problem   with trying to create large Meshtastic networks  is the low power output limits which forces you   to put up more Meshtastic nodes which causes more  congestion in Europe the legal output limit for   the lower frequency is 500 mW that's half a watt  although it seems most lower devices transmit at   an even lower output radio communication is mostly  line of sight and you can find impressive examples   of making very long range Meshtastic connections  when standing on the peak of a mountain or even   being on an airplane you can even easily receive  LoRa packets transmitted from satellites however   when transmitting at half of a watt at UHF  frequencies your signal will still easily be   blocked by the smallest amount of tree branches  and buildings LoRa is impressively long range   compared to a doorbell but it is not a strong  signal compared to other radio options you will   absolutely need to use better antennas than the  small included ones to get the most range out   of these devices and preferably the antenna  needs to be mounted as close as possible to   the device as longer lengths of antenna cable  will lower the signal strength significantly Meshtastic is a fun and easy way to get started in  experimenting with antennas and radio propagation   but being limited to the license-free ISM bands  is a bit like being limited to only using the   sidewalk even if LoRa is like putting on roller  blades and getting the most out of the sidewalk   it is still only the sidewalk there exists  a very similar project to Meshtastic however   a much older and more mature project that has  already been widely adopted around the world This message is sent directly between these two  devices completely off grid without using Wi-Fi   or Cellular Connection If the message cannot  reach the other device directly it can jump   through one or more repeating noes this is known  as APRS - Automatic Package Reporting System APRS   works exactly like Meshtastic by transmitting and  repeating short data packets that can be used to   send messages report your position or transmit  telemetry information APRS has been around since   the 80s and is implemented in a wide variety of  radios and software and you can even use aprs   with a HackRF PortaPack but you can also do APRS  by connecting a radio to your computer or even to   a smartphone phone the cheapest and easiest way of  getting started with APRS is getting a cheap radio   you might already have one like this Quansheng and  buying or making this specific cable that allows   you to connect the radio to a smartphone running  aprs software just like Meshtastic you can now   in the app see other nearby nodes appearing in the  list you can send them text messages and see their   location and other telemetry information that  they've chosen to share there are even attempts at   implementing APRS directly into a custom firmware  for Quansheng radios so that you wouldn't even   need a phone lots of other radios already come  with APRS functionality built in unlike Meshtastic   every aprs node is not automatically configured  to repeat packages because this is rarely useful   for the network to function properly Instead  This is done by dedicated repeaters known as   digipeaters these are located in higher places  all around the world put up and maintained by   volunteers just like meshtastic repeater notes  you can even put up your own Digipeaters but   unlike Meshtastic nodes you probably already have  an APRS Digipeater within range of you there is   even an APRS Digipeater on the International Space  Station even though APRS can be used completely   offline some digipeaters are also connected  to the internet this is known as an iGate   if you announce your presence near an iGate any  user near another iGate worldwide will be able   of sending your messages there are also services  available through aprs like sending short emails   you can see aprs activity digipeaters and nodes  in your area and worldwide by going to the website   aprs.fi while meshtastic can also be connected to  the internet through MQTT the implementation is   still a bit iffy and can quickly cause congestion  the big advantage to aprs is the range aprs can   be transmitted at much higher power levels where  a meshtastic device might only be transmitting   at less than half of a watt this simple handheld  radio can transmit at a much higher output of 5   watts and digipeaters might transmit at 20 - 50  wats or even higher aprs is also transmitted at   a much lower VHF frequency in Europe that's  144.8 MHz and radio signals at these lower   frequencies are not as easily blocked by trees  and buildings and thus get better range so even   though LoRa Meshtastic is using a much better  chirp spread spectrum modulation to get every   tiny bit of signal through compared to the simpler  and less efficient AFSK modulation used by aprs   the higher power levels and lower frequency of  aprs causes the real life range to be much better   than meshtastic higher power output is however  also a downside as the digipeaters also require   more power and cannot as easily be run off a tiny  solar panel like Meshtastic nodes can but it's not   impossible this is a map of Meshtastic activity in  my local area and this is a map of aprs activity   in the same area Meshtastic is gaining popularity  but aprs currently has much larger coverage and   more activity at this point I think Meshtastics  best practical use is smaller temporary battery   powered networks while APRS is probably better  for larger area networks as a more permanent   infrastructure with more uses although both are  fun to play around with in all kinds of scenarious APRS is not using the narrow sidewalk of  the radio spectrum though instead of using   the license-free ism bands APRS is used on  the amateur radio bands this means that if   you want to play you have to take a driver's  license for the highways of the radio spectrum Amateur radio is also known as ham radio  and both are terrible names for it really   it should just be called hobby radio if you've  been playing around with Meshtastic you've   already been engaging in Hobby radio playing  around with antennas doing range testing and   experimenting with new protocols is exactly  what amateur radio is all about but instead   of being limited to a few license-free narrow  bands with strict output limitations that are   shared with other equipment amateur radio  has a bunch of different dedicated bands   with much higher power levels allowed to make  sure that you know how to make sure that your   experiments do not interfere with other radio  communication however you need to take a simple   test before getting a call sign and being let  loose on the amateur bands it's not really that   difficult and I highly recommend it if you're  having fun experimenting with meshtastic there is   a whole world of similar stuff to play around with  on the amateur bands you can communicate through   satellites or the International Space Station  reflect signals of shooting stars and experiment   with low signal modulations on the shortwave bands  having your signals reflected off the ionosphere   and reach all around the globe there is even a  meshastic-like modulation type made for shortwave   and some some of these can even be run of a  smartphone connected to a handheld radio right now   in this very moment there are radio signals all  around us just waiting to be received and decoded If you have not yet played around with  Meshtastic I highly encourage it it is   cheap and easy to get started if you're  already having fun with Meshtastic I think   you would also enjoy the radio amateur  hobby and the many similar activities   that it offers and maybe you can even  help expand the aprs coverage in your   area I hope this video has given you a small  insight into the world of Meshtastic and APRS

Channel: sn0ren

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Id: 3CbXoo5rqSU

Length: 22min 1sec (1321 seconds)

Published: Sun May 12 2024