Comment on The offline messaging apps challenging internet shutdowns
sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
How does Meahtastic relate?
I want to like it, but
all make it feel to me like a project for comfortable hobbyists at hackathons, not a serious protest communication tool.
It would be nice if these mesh projects worked together. There are at least three major incompatible LoRa mesh ecosystems. I think only Reticulum has both LoRa and Bluetooth, but Reticulum is possibly the least mature, and it’s even more obscure than Meshtastic. A few phones with Reticulum over LoRa could relay messages from Reticulum over Bluetooth phones over a longer distance, and potentially reach the internet from some distant location.
Columba looks like the app you’d want. I’ve never used it.
Thank you so much for the Columba recommendation! I played around with it enough to connect two devices over Bluetooth LE, and I assume if I had the extra hardware, I’d be able to use a LoRa radio with it too (looks like the option to flash it is simply built into the app).
I might need to look into the privacy implications of turning on a Bluetooth radio at a local event when a lot of recommendations say you should leave your phone at home, but this at least seems promising if somebody had a second device specifically for these things.
MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Meshtastic (and Meshcore) use LoRa radios so require extra hardware, but as a result have much longer range than Bluetooth.
mesamunefire@piefed.social 2 months ago
As someone that has used bothfor years: * meshtastic - great at imprompu connections. Camping, big events, ect. Like within 5 milesish. * meshcore - great at consistant communication with known nodes. Think your house, office, or established areas. Getting messages out of your local city is possible.
Its fun as a hobby.