MakerBlockI had no idea there was some kind of huge split between Meshtastic / Meshcore and now I think I'll just sit it out and wait for Betamax and VHS to figure out the standards...
Emily Velasco@makerblock I don't know if it's a huge split. It seems like a lot of people tinker with both
Daryll Strauss@MLE_online @makerblock I've been working with Meshtastic (mostly because it was the first to be useable) but following Meshcore. Meshcore has some real benefits in efficiency at the expense of a more "pre-planned" vs "ad-hoc" network. Meshtastic node types are copying good ideas from Meshcore. They are both good options for different use cases and make a healthy rivalry.
I have plenty of radios, I should add a couple Meshcore infrastructure nodes to my home setup.
@daryll @makerblock I was on meshtastic first, but I could only ever see messages, but not send any out. There just wasn't enough of a network here or something.
I guess I wasn't the only one. Apparently a lot of people in this area all switched from Meshtastic to Meshcore in the last few months. There's a very robust MT network here now, and the MC network is a lot smaller.
I'm guessing that's probably what will happen in a lot of places. One city will end up MC and another will end up MT
@MLE_online @makerblock When I last looked (*sigh* quite a while ago) I didn't see repeaters in my "hood". I checked again today and there are a few. Not everyone announces to a map, so I assume there are more than the map reflects. I can't judge the connectivity/performance/community until I get my hands dirty and try it.
@daryll @makerblock Interesting. Meshcore seems to automatically pick up repeaters and add them to the map even if you don't do it yourself. My repeater just appeared there without me having to do anything.
@MLE_online @makerblock Bad assumption on my part? MT doesn't announce automatically. Maybe MC does or defaults to yes? Having a good Internet based map could let you do better routing.
@daryll I don't really know what the mechanism is. You can manually advertise a repeater, or set it to automatically advertise itself on a regular interval.
But I didn't do any of those things and my repeater showed up on the map, maybe because it was routing messages from my handheld device
Do you need different hardware for each one - or can you just switch between them? Which hardware setup are you using?
@makerblock @daryll They use the same hardware. You just put different firmware on them. I just swapped mine from meshtastic to meshcore
I'm using a Heltec v3 for my handheld unit and my repeater. I think basically all of the hardware can do both protocols though
@makerblock @MLE_online As MLE said, you can just flash them with whatever you want. It's really easy to flash, you connect it via USB and use a web browser.
My Meshtastic roof node is a Wisblock (low power), with a 10AH LiPo, and a solar panel with MPPT, and a 8dB outdoor antenna. <$75.
I could put a second one up and run Meshcore. If I were smart I'd share the power parts.
I have a few nodes for projects. Once I have 2 roof nodes I can switch the project nodes all I want.