Advice for use case + Compliments!

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I got some T-Beams at the end of 2021, and while I thought they were neat, the mobile app was almost unusable for iOS and I had a few issues with the devices. But when it did work, it was great.

Fast forward to now, WOW. The Mobile app works great in iOS, the web flasher works GREAT, the Web UI to configure works GREAT. These things are now amazing

I have 3 devices, and I want one of them to act as a base station/repeater and I have some questions

  • Is a T-Beam a good choice for a repeater?

  • Do I just set it to “Repeater” role? Is there a description of all the roles somewhere?

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  • Is the WiFi Config to create a network, or connect to a network?

  • It defaulted to Long Fast on the latest firmware. Is this the best setting? Is there an explanation for the other settings?

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Would love any help possible! My use case here is to set one up somewhere high up, and then use the other 2 so I can communicate during a hurricane etc when things may be down

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According to the documentation (I have no links but I went through the documentation yesterday on the train and believe I saw almost all of your questions at least to some degree answered):

  • WiFi only acts as Client (connects to an existing WiFi) - SoftAP (playing access point) is not currently available
  • from what I read the T-Beam is ESP32 while WisBlock RAK modules are NRF52480 which seem to use way less energy for the same thing, so a small (and probably cheaper) RAK might be better as router.
  • the documentation sounds like setting the role is a good starting point and should suffice in most cases
  • not sure on the modes

Regarding your use case: I’m thankfully not in a region where the weather gets that disastrous, but when I played with the thought of doing something like that I ended up realising that a blackout or cut power lines or communication lines (landlines, internet, …) are the most likely scenario where this network might be the last resort, which meant that the nodes wherever I put them would be relatively save on themselves, however with a rather harsh contrast in temper between summer and winter the batteries might be a problem. Also with the possibility of several weeks of snow, solar might not be as helpful as I initially wished. Still not sure on how to do something like that. Maybe a summer and a winter setup (read: two nodes)

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Thanks, I found the correct documentation just after I posted of course and it did answer a few questions

WiFi seems to be working well so far, pretty good for a repeater type config so I can easily connect and configure it

I’ve gone for “Router Client” which seems to do what I want for now, and I’ve also made them all Long-Slow

Thanks, I’ll check those RAK units!

I’ll update when I make a mount for it and how it performs

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