Hi everyone,
I’m exploring ways to integrate my Meshtastic setup with my home network for better connectivity. Has anyone tried this or have any tips? Specifically, I’m looking for information on connecting it to the internet for remote access. Any resources or links to detailed guides would be greatly appreciated. If you have a website, info page, or any relevant documentation, please share the link. Click here or visit this page if you have something helpful. Thanks in advance for your help!
You can connect your node to your private wifi hotspot and uplink/downlink via private MQTT.
I run a Matrix chat server…which I’ve got a T-Echo permanently married to.
The T-Echo is my bridge, and I run the Matrix-Meshtastic relay service on the server as well.
This makes the T-Echo broadcast to the mesh, anything that gets said to it as a direct message on the Matrix server(accessible anywhere on the internet).
On the Meshtastic side, the T-Echo just relays everything it hears on LongFast to a dedicated chat-room on the Matrix server.
It allows me to both read messages and broadcast to/from my local, neighborhood mesh while traveling beyond its immediate reach.
I don’t care for MQTT. It’s a philosophical thing, nothing wrong with it, but I personally never want to see remote nodes via the internet on my mesh. There are dedicated chat services for that…like Matrix. Mixing the two via MQTT provides (IMO) a false sense of accomplishment and understanding as to the limitations and capabilities of the technology…but I’m old and grumpy, so YMMV 
Best,
Pol
I’m quite interested in this Matrix stuff. Are you only using the free tier? Was it hard to get up and running?
I operate my own Matrix server out of my basement on personal hardware, but one could certainly use the Matrix.org SaaS service or any other, for that matter. I used to run mine on AWS, but recently pulled it back in-house to save on monthly charges, but as long as you had a place to run the Matrix-Meshtastic Relay service, you’d be fine. It doesn’t have to be running on the same box as the Matrix server, but it makes it simpler to do so.
All things aside, Matrix is a fantastic service if you’re looking for a fediverse option for a non-corporatized user-generated end-to-end encrypted chat service. If I’ve got my 78yo mother using it, it cant be that hard! 
Matrix is a fairly easy set-up on Ubuntu, there are plenty of guides out there for how to do it. I moved to FreeBSD but I’d not recommend that for a first-time install.
If you do go with a hosted option, just keep in mind you’ll have to find somewhere to run the M-M Relay service…it was remarkably easy to configure using the instructions on the GItHub repo. It does need to be able to login and interact with the Matrix service, however, so keep that in mind.
Best wishes, it’s a nice setup that works well without opening your nodes to MQTT spam.
Regards,
Pol