But that’s MQTT, what’s the point in using internet based comms on a system designed for radio? Just text or use an app. Many of us are trying to use it as actual radio, for SHTF etc.

Nobody knew it'd fall apart if it became too popular though, still glad I didn't jump in too soon mind you 🤷‍♂

I think the reputation of Meshtastic got ahead of itself. In small scale tests it was borderline magic but it turned out to have scaling issues when usage exploded. Devs are working through it and just a few days ago it had to disable the ROUTER_CLIENT role because it turned out people were (probably unknowingly) misusing it. Those nodes were prioritized in routing because they were supposed to be at geographical advantages for range, but people were just mounting them on poles and such. Those nodes had better coverage than random mobile nodes but far from what the intended use demanded. Basically we're early adopters. I've been a Meshtastic user since the 1.x series builds and it has come a long way, but it's not ready for mainstream adoption just yet. Keep an eye out for routing changes in the changelog, now that there's momentum in solving scaling issues we need to test the scaling as quickly as possible!

Not really Andys fault he didn’t make it. It’s a cool project it cost me about £30 to get involved and the esp board can be used for almost anything

@@TheeMuseumofjunkpretty obvious it would fail with too much use.

For me and my family and friends, I'm sticking with LORA meshtastic. It serves a purpose, and I'm gonna keep it until I see the need to change.

It will level out like any hobby/fad/trend…… just have one full time base and 1 portable. I have loads of nodes but only keep two active full time…… lora isn’t going away IoT is used on mass

Lol meshtastic isn't going anywhere and the new UI looks amazing. I think it might become the standard for non-FCC bowing messaging systems

@@HotelHero (to be clear I agree with what you said about meshtastic not going anywhere and the new UI is great. I'm mostly responding to what you wrote about using it as a messaging system....) Too bad the messaging part doesn't work reliably. A lot of people have very unrealistic expectations. It's fun to experiment with and learn about, and it's exciting to open a client and see that a node from a hundred miles away made it to yours via 7 hops. But good luck sending a message reliably to your neighbor one block away. Here's why: Did you know that activity on a frequency is generally throttled to 25%? Yes, all those nodes talking to themselves choke the bandwidth. Check out your nodes' and other nodes' metrics if you don't believe me. It peaks around 25%. You might be wondering who is talking because you aren't seeing anything on LongFast. Well, that's because the nodes are saying to each other, "I exist" and "here I am" so much that it can consume more than 25%, and few people can talk when it is throttled. Next, add in more nodes. Some homes become black holes for neighborhoods and cities because they have three nodes. Oopsie - there go the hops. Then you have the folks who think they are the special ones who need to setup a router in their house, which further detroys the mesh. On and on it goes.

It's not broken it's just UK has so many nodes and many are configured wrong so they make the mesh not work great

@@HotelHerocan’t wait to see how they get the t-deck sorted out. The t-deck is capable of many thing so would be good to see this as a focal point one day ?

In my opinion one mistake was calling it “Long Fast” in the first place - in a hobby populated by mostly blokes, who wouldn’t want long and also fast, who would want less than long, who would want less than fast, everyone is going to feel short-changed and inferior if they were to admit they’re on medium-slow or short slow or something unimpressive like that - that’s what people are like

​@@IanTindale"ribbed for her pleasure" 🤭

Were you on long fast default at glastonbury? I topped out at 13 nodes on site this year. I wouldnt be surprised if you were hopping via my node, theres one on the hill line of site between festival ground and the coast with a good path over to weston bridgewater and sometimes across into wales

I don't see it being that black and white. There'll always be people who'll experiment with a system to see what it can do and ham radio isn't always the answer. Nothing wrong with trying to build friendships / contacts with an open access system like this rather than be tied / restrict as you are with ham radio.

if you adopt meshtastic for off brid backup incase of SHFT situation then go back to ham radio.

Firstly I think you'd need to have addressable repeaters, rather than doing what I did in my video where I used a simple RPT flag you could dial up a certain repeater with an ID, a bit like CTCSS on oldskool FM HAM repeaters. I agree on the CLIENT_MUTE usage for meshtastic in very congested areas and I've been saying this a long time, I do intend to make a video about this. As I said in the video I'm not saying this is trying to tread on meshtastics toes, it never could but it can offer another dimension to the hobby and help people learn about how a system like this works rather than just turning it on and expecting it to be a whatsapp replacement!

@@andykirby I appreciate the nuance. It's just very difficult to balance between reliability and scalability using mobile nodes with limited bandwidth and memory. "Smart" routing algorithms will create overhead, with "dumb" routing manual configuration is required if you want to push the limits.

@@andykirby fm repeaters.. scale… lol. andy, wake up

Yep no authentication because meshtastic has the zero trust brain worms

How long do you think people will wait? Genuine question.

I didn't say I was giving up! I've been making videos about radio messaging and data comms since the beginning of this channel.

I'm only echoing what many in the community are saying. Standby fro more videos on how we can make it better.

Good stuff, get stuck in!

No one cares

@@HotelHero because it’s an uk thing. meshexit

A small amount of research from him would have saved everyone wasted time and money 😤

This!

Reality is Meshtastic is still only releasing Alpha and Beta quality software. If you're on the network then you are an early adopter. Clearly we need lots of early adopters to work out the scaling issues but jumping ship now would essentially be to judge a book by it's cover. Anyway, it's your boards so you can do whatever you want with them (as long as you follow the regulations), but if you do switch away from Meshtastic I think we'd all appreciate you coming back later for the next round of testing the mesh routing. Mesh routing changes are mentioned in the changelogs so keep an eye out for those.

This Technology is Bleeding Edge, if ya can't handle that, go back to Knitting 😂🇨🇦

Yes it is, what would be cool is to be able to use the SPI based LoRa module on a lot of these boards to communicate with the Reyax modules.

I'm 14 miles north from you on high ground running an omni antenna, In the next month I'm changing it for a south facing yagi (due to higher hills to my north) so hang on in there as I think it likely I can reach Yeovil. I can already reach Weston&Burnham to my west on the coast with another antenna so lets make this thing work :-) 26CT813

Are you serious? Carrier pigeons are where it’s at

I have a video planned for this.

@@andykirby You have my attention.

Yeah in areas where it's not busy you'll have a much better chance at successful messaging but you still need strong RSSI for it to work well. The way to make it work currently is to turn off the mesh feature on all but very well placed nodes. This avoids a lot of congestion.

​@@andykirbylike ham radio.

I am doing this also.👍🏻

@@andykirby can you refer to a related topic on github or discourse please?

Yep! It wasn't ready for the onslaught of UK users!

@@InimitaPaul good learning though for V2...

@@ahaveland Just a heads up because there is a lot of chatter about this. They are technically on v2 and are discussing how to address a lot of the current issues in the next version (v3).

@@fibonacho thanks, I should have said Vn+1

It works with a handful of nodes but in congested areas it falls over.

@@andykirbycan you give some technical detail on your claim, like demonstrate the issue? just that your video isnt considered as clickbait

Looking at the UK situation, there was a thought it could be a mass chat protocol .. I have a few nodes, static, solar and mobile and it works for me - I only need a small mesh to communicate in my village, very few people will have the funds to join the system, but if they can and expand the local mesh, that’s great! But due to distance and habitation, i doubt it will bridge to the next city. The UK has a higher density, and it’s now saturated to the point where it looks like it’s falling over due to its own success.

Exactly ​@@recom273

@@recom273 maybe folks in the uk do something different, like not managing the network right? other types of networks can be congested too and optimized to be efficient. i dont see anything exlcluding meshtastic.

Yep! For sure it's been figured out before, it's all just requires a bit too much bandwidth if you are trying to do it without any sort of backhaul.

@@ahaveland if gprs and tcpip figured it all out why isnt it used by innovation andy now?

@@TouYubeTom Huh? Your mobile phone uses GPRS and TCP/IP. The entire internet uses TCP/IP.

Harsh but true. This video seems to represent exactly the same flaws that Meshtastic does.

the frequency range is also pretty uk and ham specific. scales by exclusion 👑

It can be a bit challenging yeah🤣 however it is quite refreshing not have notifications going off while you are trying to concentrate🤣

Yes been saying this a while.

My reply disappeared? Or you see it

It has encryption by way of an 8 digit hex code.

@@andykirby that's better than nothing.

@@ifell3 That's 128 bits.

Haha it's all good fun! You should try LoRa aprs as well. 😁

Yes, I'm aware of the hamventiin problems. Correct it's similar to the the Hayes command set.

Not even broken, just don’t use the default settings designed for use in areas with few radios

It depends on the hardware.

@@andykirby err, what hardware listed as compatible with meshtastic can be used?

Probably cheaper than golf 🤣

Err messaging doesn't work...

@@andykirby now i think you are just jealous on the success of something else.. what a bold claim

User error of everyone using default settings designed for areas that have few radios and applying it to packed areas

@@andykirby it works. It works fine. If you mean mqtt flooding the app. That's a configuration issue

@@pen25whilst MQTT being broadcast and leaking into the mesh etc is an issue, the real issue is that too many people are running as router etc when they are in sub optimal locations. If people stuck to client and client mute it would instantly help lower packet collisions. But nobody listens, no matter which forum we try to educate people on this.

Yes, sadly this has been a bit of a trend lately.

Meshtastic is just firmware/software the hardware can be re programmed My issue is if any frequencies conflict causing more drop outs

I and a small group have just piled up some boards, parts, components. Couple hundred $$US worth. Planned to deploy about 6 standalone solar nodes and see what happens. One person has thoughts of using with CERT and ARES EmComm type activities. Should I act fast before the Amazon Return Period expires?

This isn't a meshtastic channel🤣

@@andykirby well those are the only videos I watch of yours 🤷🏼‍♂️

Hopefully some nodes will show up on the app someday…