Beginner questions

Support
1

Hello all,

I’m all new to this and I have some questions where I hope someone can point me in the right direction.
I ordered a LilyGo T-echo and look forward very much to it arriving so I can start playing. What I would like to achieve is the following:

Set up a “home base” node that I keep in my office that communicates with the T-echo. This home-base node I would like to connect to my Home Assistant following the instructions on Home Assistant | Meshtastic

I am a bit confused about what hardware I should get to perform this “home base” task. Obviously I need something that will connect to my local LAN, so I guess wi-fi or wired ethernet.
I really like the “plug and play” of the T-echo. Is there something similar for my “home-base” node use case? I really want to avoid soldering and keep the “physical tinkering” to a minimum. I guess what I am asking is if someone could advice on a “out-of-the-box” solution that has wifi and a reasonable casing. (ideally all in one package - not 3d-prints etc.). It being permanently in the office I don’t need to run it on a battery at all.

I hope my question makes sense and what I want to achieve makes sense? I would greatly appreciate any input as this is all new to me.

Thanks!

2

There aren’t many devices that come complete with a case. There are none that I know of that come with ethernet out of the box. There basically 3 main devices architecture out there NRF52 which has Bluetooth (no wifi), ESP32 which has Bluetooth and wifi and the Raspberry Pi Pico RP2040. The Pico W model has WiFi, but bluetooth is not supported. There are add on boards for some devices like RakWireless to add ethernet.

NRF52 devices get much better battery, but you’re not concerned with that. ESP32 is likely the way should go. Most of the new devices that are coming out with a full enclosure are NRF52 devices. You can get some devices with really high quality 3D prints like Muzi.works H1 which is a Heltec LoRa 32 V3. It’s an ESP32 device and has WiFi. It has a battery but will happily run off of USB C power. At $65 for a complete device it’s not a bad option and the print quality is pretty good. H1 - Complete Device: Heltec V3 running Meshtastic® – muzi ᴡᴏʀᴋꜱ

3

Hi g1gabyt3!

Thanks for your reply and taking the time to give me some pointers. Much appreciated. I’ll look into what you suggested, although I am sure this is a barrier for many people to get started. It’d be great to see more “ready-of-the-box” solutions :slight_smile: - but hey, I understand this is all open source and community based so everything will have its time.

cheers

4

Check out Spec5 (https://specfive.com/). They have a lot of “off the shelf” devices with cases.

You could also look at the Lilygo Tdeck Plus. Completely standalone device.

5

Seeed Studio has a pretty nifty device coming out. It’s like the size of credit card and very thin. It’s a complete device with battery and GPS and is water resistant. SenseCAP Card Tracker T1000-E for Meshtastic

6

I do not use any nodes via ethernet at home so cannot say what to choose there. I tried the T-beam for this and be aware that swapping between WiFi and Bluetooth on some nodes can be a mega pain - I even had to re-flash one once as it got stuck due to sharing the same antenna and chip for wifi and bluetooth. Also the web interface for the node did not send and receive messages. Perhaps others have success with this but I have enough rabbit holes in Meshtastic without that one.

So I recommend a Station G2 as home base. You need a USB PD power supply and USB C cables that can pass that power. The devices work and the antenna they come with is sufficient for the start. (I find that which antenna to upgrade to is not so important as node location so optimise the home base node location first and foremost.)

The T-echo is super (when it works) with a good antenna, and I use the following on the T-echo

Taoglas FW.86.B.SMA.M e.g. from FW.86.B.SMA.M | Taoglas Antenna, ISM, 850 … 890 MHz, 240mm, 3.5 dBi, Male SMA, Screw | Distrelec International FW.86.B.SMA.M | Taoglas Antenna, ISM, 850 ... 890 MHz, 240mm, 3.5 dBi, Male SMA, Screw | Distrelec International )

The T-echo can crash and need re-flashing a zillion times to get it to work again… at least that is my experience. The screen on mine is toast but I do not care. The reception is fabulous and it lasts a few days easily.

The main problem in practice is the bluetooth connection to the node that is linked by blueooth to your phone. In practice, you cannot carry around your T-echo all the time. So in fact the best thing is to have excellent bluetooth connection to your carry-around-node so that at home it sits on a shelf and you can communicate via it using bluetooth wherever you are at home. This can be very problematic.

To test, I upgraded the bluetooth antenna on a RAK system using this e.g. https://amzn.eu/d/1fbC7e3
and so would recommend a node in the house which allows for a better bluetooth antenna. I cannot see a way of getting the Station G2 to have better bluetooth range, but have no problem with that anyway. I find the RAK system with upgraded bluetooth antenna to have enough bluetooth range from all parts of the house…

That means it can, for your circumstances, be best (and most fun) to build your own compact carry-around node with the design to match your needs for bluetooth and battery life.

7

Wow! Thanks for all the input! I didn’t expect so much great advice!

My Lilygo T-echo arrived and I have been playing a bit. I manage to see 6-7 other nodes but I cant send any messages ( I just get “max retransmission reached”). I am assuming because my link to the other nodes is to weak? I should really have a second node to better be able to play with this. I still don’t know what the best thing for that second node would be, but I will go through all the great advice in this thread.