I'm Getting into Mesh Networks (Meshtastic, MeshCore, and Reticulum)

Panda_

Saw this at https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/im-getting-into-mesh-net... and thought it was interesting

Groxx

> To be perfectly upfront with you, this post will be glossing over many Meshtastic and MeshCore features, because I feel they are both non-serious solutions compared to Reticulum for reasons I will explain later on in this post. Yeah, that's the general feel I get every time I poke into Mesh*. Neat radio tech, fun toy to find other nearby nerds, instantly-obvious problems that are fatal to growing beyond being that toy (or small specialized personal nets, where it's totally fine). They feel more like a tech demo than anything actually intended to survive. Which is fine, you kinda need that to start out, and they do work today. Just... hard to get excited about.

jauntywundrkind

In general I'm happy the longer range options are about, but I'd much rather see IP based ad-hoc communication. Wifi 802.11ah "halow" is such a more versatile structure than these limited networks. More of everything, of course! But I'm far more interested in making the wifi we have more ad-hoc capable, more useful anywhere any time, for whatever, especially on the longer range bands like 900MHz.

raffael_de

This has been on here a couple of times the past few days or weeks. Finally pulled the trigger and bought a Seeed Studio Wio Tracker L1 Pro for MeshCore. I find the idea of a para-internet just fast enough for text based monomedia content highly appealing. Probably a mix of nostalgia but also realism - my thinking is that a network too slow for pictures / audio / video would elegantly avoid problems like spam and (illegal) pornography by design.

ericrosedev

After seeing the Gemini, Gophers, and Fingers post today https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48297467 I wonder if they would pair well with Reticulum

robotswantdata

Set up solar nodes last weekend. 200 miles of range now. Nerds, mad ideas. Good times.

transcriptase

Every time I get excited about one of these techs I end up finding it has approx the same range as a late 90s cordless phone unless you live on the Nevada salt flats, and a data rate that could probably be beat out by Morse code on a GMRS radio. Sadly I live in the opposite of that terrain with approx the same population density. Regardless I have a few LILYGO Meshtastic Esp32 boards that are neat to play around with!

mycall

Does 802.11p work in any of these mesh networks? It could amplify their usefulness.

transitivebs

https://github.com/markqvist/reticulum is the official mirror for reticulum

smlacy

IMHO this article misses a couple really important points. First, if the mesh can use Internet or other transports then it will, and it will be built out in a way where these become a necessity. If all you want is a silly new way to text your friends, then something like reticulum will be ok. But if you want a serious solution for emergency response and free communication -- free as in "no one can stop me or control what is said no matter what" then building something independent from scratch is critically important. Second, the author also misses an important piece of functionality of meshcore: If I lose power, the mesh still works. This is hugely important for emergency preparedness and disaster recovery. Especially in places prone to any form of natural disaster. It's certainly the early days, and it's clear that there's a long way to go, but I really feel that these fully decentralized solar powered networks are hugely important as a simple alternative to the corporate behemoth the internet has become.

dyauspitr

I got into it too back in 2012. Frankly it’s not a very interesting space unless you’re trying to circumvent nation wide internet shutdowns because for everything else encrypted chat channels serve the same purpose and everyone is doing it (WhatsApp, signal, telegram etc)

FabCH

Am I the only one who thinks MeshCore shouldn’t be called „off grid“? Unlike Meshtastic and Reticulum, the need for router nodes is built into the protocol itself in MeshCore. And while nodes are cheap and amateurs can put them up, that is still a grid that has to exist for your MeshCore client to be useful…

londons_explore

Please someone design a worldwide mesh network. Mix of wireless and wired links. Like the internet, but self-configuring and peer to peer. Yes, there are lots of technical and social challenges, but I don't believe they are unsolvable.