inexpensive ($30 ish) GPS radios as an extensible, super long battery life mesh GPS communicator. These radios are great for hiking, skiing, paragliding -
essentially any hobby where you don't have reliable internet access. Each member of your private mesh can always see the location and distance of all other
members and any text messages sent to your group chat.
The radios automatically create a mesh to forward packets as needed, so everyone in the group can receive messages from even the furthest member. The radios
will optionally work with your phone, but no phone is required.
* Communication API for bluetooth devices (such as our Android app) to use the mesh. So if you have some application that needs long range low power networking, this might work for you.
This project is currently in early alpha - if you have questions please join our chat [![Join the chat at https://gitter.im/Meshtastic/community](https://badges.gitter.im/Meshtastic/community.svg)](https://gitter.im/Meshtastic/community?utm_source=badge&utm_medium=badge&utm_campaign=pr-badge&utm_content=badge).
This software is 100% open source and developed by a group of hobbyist experimenters. No warranty is provided, if you'd like to improve it - we'd love your help. Please post in the [chat](https://gitter.im/Meshtastic/community).
* 02/23/2020 - 0.0.4 release. Still very bleeding edge but much closer to the final power management, a charged T-BEAM should run for many days with this load. If you'd like to try it, we'd love your feedback. Click [here](https://github.com/geeksville/Meshtastic-esp32/blob/master/README.md) for instructions.
[![Download at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.geeksville.mesh](https://play.google.com/intl/en_us/badges/static/images/badges/en_badge_web_generic.png)](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.geeksville.mesh&referrer=utm_source%3Dhomepage%26anid%3Dadmob)
We currently support two brands of radios. The [TTGO T-Beam](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000119152086.html) and the [Heltec LoRa 32](https://heltec.org/project/wifi-lora-32/). Most people should buy the T-Beam and a 18650 battery (total cost less than $35). Make
sure to buy the frequency range which is legal for your country. For the USA, you should buy the 915MHz version. Getting a version that include a screen is optional, but highly recommended.
For a nice TTGO 3D printable case see this [design](https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3773717) by [bsiege](https://www.thingiverse.com/bsiege).
For a nice Heltec 3D printable case see this [design](https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3125854) by [ornotermes](https://www.thingiverse.com/ornotermes).
* We don't make these devices and they haven't been tested by UL or the FCC. If you use them you are experimenting and we can't promise they won't burn your house down ;-)
* A number of (straightforward) software work items have to be completed before battery life matches our measurements, currently battery life is about two days. Join us on chat if you want the spreadsheet of power measurements/calculations.
For more details see the [device software TODO](https://github.com/geeksville/Meshtastic-esp32/blob/master/TODO.md) or the [Android app TODO](https://github.com/geeksville/Meshtastic-Android/blob/master/TODO.md).