Asset Tracking Module

Development Hardware
1

Hi All

I just discovered Meshtastic and have some hardware on the way. Can’t wait to get into playing.

I’m looking at using T-echo’s for asset tracking in a business I’m involved in. It’s an audio production company so has loads of really expensive electronic toys. A t-echo could be mounted on or in each piece of equipment and in many cases could get power from the equipment to keep the battery topped up.

We could use Meshtastic to know where everything is, let us know if something has been left behind or even let us know if something has gone walkabout.

Obviously in a scenario like this, I don’t want people playing with menus once a device is all setup and it might be nice to display a fixed logo on screen.

I could hack Meshtastic to work in this scenario but it would be a shame not to continue taking advantage of new features etc.

Therefore my question is, is this best implemented as a module, say an asset track module which when enabled would lock out all other options from the device UI and perhaps display a logo of choice of remotely configurable messages (perhaps the job etc).

If it was a module then it could still take advantage of all the great underlying code development going on in Meshtastic without it being a hacky mod to the base code.

Does anyone have any thoughts or interest in this as a concept?

2

as i see you did the right choise with t-echos,
these have gps and offer the longest battery runtime of gps-enabled meshtastic devices.
it is easily possible to swap the internal battery for a bigger one to get some more days runtime.

the device UI of t echoes does not allow any changes to options,
just power/on/off and reset.
as long as it is not connected to a mobile phone by BLE or a computer by serial/Usb there are no changes possible. (you can disable BLE after setting all the options)
also there is “managed mode” that does not allow many of available options even if connected by phone… you can send text-messages to the device of whichthe last one is shown on the paper-screen.

in case of finding an audio device after theft, you would best hide it inside the audio-device :slight_smile: but still take care , that the GPS antenna can get some gps signals, and also that the lora antenna is not shielded too much…

3

Great advice thankyou.
I’ll wait for the hardware to arrive and have a play to see whether it might actually work out of the box.