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Comment by JKCalhoun | Hacker News Reader

Cool concept.

I don't know what it is, but from the article it appears to be a secondary device (Meshtastic) you pair with your iPhone/Android phone via Bluetooth. This secondary device has the giant Lithium cells and microcontroller with the LoRa antenna setup.

Some software package on the phone, perhaps a messaging like app, sends message data (AES encrypted) between your phone and the Meshtastic device. The Meshtastic device somehow knows which other Meshtastic devices to send/receive from?

Feels like the phone shouldn't even be needed is a simple LCD display and tiny keyboard were added to the Meshtastic? (And I suppose the en(de)cryption would have to be done on the device now.

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It's bridging to digital traffic over long range radio.

The phone provides a familar interface AND the GPS cords for texting locations (and possibly pinning on maps already present on phone when WEB-Maps are offline (google, bing, other, etc).

Once matured it will have some application for hikers on trails away from cell tower coverage sans Starlink access.

I'm used to rural fire brigade trucks and SES rescue vehicles that have a slew of standalone radio gear and multiple GPS units already fitted .. but I can see some scope for this when looking for lost tourists and city folk.

Some of the LoRa boards do have built-in GPS so you do not have to rely on the phone's GPS. It also means accurate time, so you can display how long ago a message was received. When I tried meshtastic, the LCD had the option to point towards other receivers.

It also took 20 minutes for first GPS sync, which was less fun.

> It also took 20 minutes for first GPS sync, which was less fun.

This is true in a common base case (LilyGO T-Beam neo6m with stock antenna) but is easily fixed. The stock antennas are absolutely pathetic and something like https://www.mouser.com/c/?q=GP.1575.25.4.A.02 is much much better. The other significant improvement is using a board with a better GPS module, like the M8N version of the T-Beam.

This is correct. It just sends all messages via LORA, which nearby receivers can pick up. These will broadcast it again (with a initial TTL of 3).

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