New Off-Grid LoRa Projects for your Meshtastic device.

If you're as obsessed as I am about Prepping for disasters and difficult sitatuations then you must read about everything from solar power to water filtration, to agriculture, to composting toilets and you can explain the usefulness of each at length.

And I'm sure you've tinkered with Meshtastic, a popular open source, off-grid, decentralized mesh network for messaging. Built to operate on affordable devices, with no amateur radio licensing or certification required. As versatile and useful Meshtastic is, in its current form it only supports up to 80 nodes per group. However with other firmware projects we can expand the versatility of these devices.

One of the biggest reasons for Meshtastics popularity is that it utilizes low cost IoT deviecs. These devices power smart appliances like refrigerators that have a touch-display or smart lights that can be controlled from your smartphone. Enthusiasts use them for home automation, robotics and even for running remote sensors to track plants in a greenhouse. They are programmed with many languages such as micro python, Arduino, JavaScript and java. (JavaScript is possibly the best first language to learn if you have an interest in web development or programming in general.)

But their versatility doesn't end there. Here are four projects you can explore with the same devices used for Meshtastic.

In this article we will be discussing specifically the TTGO T-Beam (SX1276).

1. Use your android phone as along range push to talk walkie talkie with the TTGO T-Beam.

Voice communication is one of the most essential services needed while off-grid and in difficult situations. The Codec2_talkie app for android utilizes the TTGO T-Beam (SX1276) device when flashed as a LoRa APRS modem. Its easy to set up and allows you to combine the range of LoRa communication with the ease of use of a walkie talkie right on your existing android device. In addition to push to talk, this APRS modem can be used with APRSDroid and provides access to the many APRS services. APRS is not a vehicle tracking system. More on APRS here.

2. Scale up your messaging to a off-grid network that serves well beyond 80 users and includes nodes running on a PC, laptop, raspberry pi or your android phone.

The Nomad Network provides a private and resilient communication. Built on opensource projects LXMF and Reticulum, the Nomad Network is a framework for messaging that can be used on a PC, Raspberry Pi or an Android phone (Sideband). All of those node types, including on android, will propagate messages over several transport mediums. On an android phone that could be over a wireless network (wifi), Bluetooth or using a TTGO T-Beam to transmit over LoRa. To use your TTGO T-Beam with the Nomad Network, you first flash the T-Beam with the RNode firmware.

Like Meshtastic, these messages are spread between the nodes but only received and read by the intended recipient. Unlike Meshtastic, you aren't limited to 80 nodes, instead it scales up to handle millions of messages between millions of clients. In fact, if all the nodes were android phones only, they would still route messages among themselves. Then once mixed in with computers, all clients serve as routing nodes.

3. Use your TTGO T-Beam for IP over LoRa.

Once flashing your T-Beam with the RNode firmware it also becomes compatible with the Linux application TNCattach.

Terminal node controllers or TNCs were traditionally devices that allowed you to use radio equipment to connect computers over vast distances. These networks are the precursors to the networks and protocols we use today.

But rather than using large radio equipment and a hefty TNC box, we can use small and affordable IoT devices. with the RNode firmware you are able to use the T-Beam as an Ethernet interface.

Essentially, all computers within range using RNodes can talk to each other as though they were connected on a local network. With radio however, if you are energy constrained, there is a trade off between bandwidth and range. You can transmit farther but the amount of data you send decreases. This results in a much slower connection than you're used to. Using an RNode in this fashion is versatile and provides great range with low cost and low power devices, but also too slow for video streaming or doing Voice over IP. It will provide long range connectivity for web browsing, email and instant messaging.

4. Keep your Meshtastic device as is and use it for chat communication within the ATAK app.

ATAK or the Android Team Awareness Kit is an android app that brings together several technologies essential for movement, communication, and online and offline mapping. It is a civilian version of the ATAK application developed by the military, though the features are nearly identical except for a few military-specific additions. ATAK has a bit of a learning curve but once it's tool-set is mastered, it is indispensable.

The world of LoRa IoT devices offers a myriad of exciting possibilities, and these four projects showcase just a glimpse of their potential. From the convenience of a walkie talkie android app for seamless communication, to the scalability of NomadNet's messaging network, the versatility of IP over LoRa with the RNode, and the efficient chat communication for ATAK, these projects demonstrate the power and innovation that can be achieved with LoRa and IoT devices.