I’m currently having a couple of problems with my new Heltec T144 (screen + gps + case). The first is the Bluetooth problem which other users are experiencing and has been mentioned here Bluetooth Not Connecting to T114
The second is an inability to send anything but short messages. I set it all up and sent the usual “test” message which sent fine but I then noticed that longer messages never get sent.
Last night the longest message I could send was 25 characters long, yesterday it was around 60 characters. Anything larger results in the max transmissions reached message.
Receiving messages seems to be fine.
So far I’ve tried 3 different antennas, powering by battery rather than usb, and I’ve taken all the components out of the case to spread everything out a bit in case the components were interfering with each other. None of that helped.
I also tried disabling gps in the app and that did work but only for one message and then it went back to not sending.
All testing was using default settings on the Long Fast preset.
The only time mine has worked as expected was when I had it connected to my PC and I used the web client and serial mode. It worked great and I thought I’d figured out the problem however on subsequent tests long messages started to fail on that too.
I was getting abuse on reddit so will post here. Reditt is not nice. There folks tell me to re flash it…I seeel now firmwear in flasher.
. will try later
A firmwear update did NOT help me with my H2T. I do note that the device has huge bluetooth range and the bluetooth connection is stable when plugged continuously into a USB charger. I think they messed up the power supply to BLE and Lora. Just a hunch. Also I can only send max 47 characters. ( I was posting on reddit - and there are some really vile posters there, as well as helpful ones. ) This post from Reddit - Dive into anything
is interesting. The other thread here also has an interesting answer from them - images here:
Indicating a serious problem. What totally mystifies me is: they did no tests, clearly. I bought my H2T from US to protect me from dodgy customer service from PRC but …
And the amazing discovery is: in Reddit - post using Apple devices as examples … Android comments are hammered and only images of apple things or images of devices get noticed - US-centric and eye candy level discussion.
Hopefully it’ll be something they can fix with a software patch. Always seems strange how these type of problems manage to sneak in to finished products.
Yesterday I managed to get it to send 120 character messages pretty reliably which is a huge improvement on what it was although that was just from one side of the room to the other. Not sure how it can vary so much day to day.
As a summary we found four factors that play a critical part in the reliability of the Bluetooth connection, namely:
Case front material (PLA-CF vs PLA)
Presence of the GPS module
Device plugged into USB power
Phone model
Since we are aiming for the device to work well across all phone models, running on battery power and with the GPS module installed, the key change for us will be switching to a PLA Case Front.
I contacted Heltec last week about the problems some of us have been having. Got a reply today to let me know that their engineers are currently investigating and it’ll be another 2-3 days before they’ve finished.
New technology - first on the block excitement vs buyer remorse because it doesn’t work as expected. The T114 has problems with long texts and the Sensecap T1000e might be deaf.
Back to my reliable RAKs
