Hello.
I just discovered meshtastic late last night… or was it very early this morning? Can’t recal. Anyway, I’m glad I did because I always wanted a decentralized network to communicate with family and friends (since I was 10!) . Now this concept has become more popular because we own an off-grid house, where there is not even electricity. We usually go to walk to the mountain and the cell signal is almost non existing.
I am pretty sure that I want to start with three nodes, 2 of the esp32 modern ones with GPS to act as walkie talkies and another without GPS to act as a central node on the roof of the house.
So I want to get some advice about which specific models to pick, there are several very similar and I don’t see big differences between them. I’m also very interested in solar powered nodes, at least for the central one
From there some other use cases for a near future are:
Tracking my car
Tracking my son baby-car
Family communication when we go out to another country or the mountain
Not sure if my future use-cases are possible, but I’m pretty sure the basic one it is.
The e-ink devices are also very attractive, specially for finding other nodes.
Bit out of the loop, but it sounds like you want two Tbeams for mobile use?
For the house one, I’d run a USB cable to it for practical purposes, maybe with a small UPS if you worry about power outages.
If you’re interested in the solar side and want to play/hack/help, then I’d look at the NRF stuff as it’s much lower power, and maybe the RAK4361 specifically. Afaik this is still a work in progress, so expect bugs/work/tweaking.
If you want it to be easy, just get a third Tbeam.
The SX1262 is the better LoRa Radio vs the older SX1276/8, the Neo N8M is a better GNSS chip but a better GNSS antenna helps more and it only comes with an IPEX connector not an SMA one.