@Edent what's so bad about <div> ... or: Why do you want to avoid them?

[warteschleife@troet.cafe]

@Edent Keep in mind that many hardware devices could run #meshcore as well as #meshtastic. So you could try one mesh and still switch if you revise your decision.

[julf@social.secret-wg.org]

@Edent MC is good for a pretty much static infrastructure if you have reliable and stable repeaters and want to reach long distances. MT is better for ad-hoc networks for a limited area (a town or an event for example) where you can't rely on semi-permanent repeaters.

[jtonline@mastodon.me.uk]

@Edent I've so far stuck to meshtastic because it seems more, well, meshy. My use case doesn't include joining a wider local mesh so it's exactly what I need.

If your use case is joining a wider local mesh then you have to go with the (local) crowd, which you'll probably need a non-mesh network to find out about. Probably Facebook but who knows!

I'm currently using Sensecap and RAK card devices which work pretty well.

[qbitzerre@unbound.social]

@Edent I want this for unicode.

[rachel@norfolk.social]

@Edent that’s the overall feeling I get, too. I get I just need to buy a device and see

[obsidian@milliways.social]

@Edent I'm much in the same boat with similar intentions so no real world experience yet.

I've got my eye on a couple of Heltec v4 devboards. v4 because they support gnss which is interesting for a few 'fun' use cases I have with friends and while it seems Meshcore is the way to go in NL as its more widely used, I understand incan switch to meshtastic pretty easily using same hardware.

Heltec appear to have decent shipping methods from their own site but I've seen similar if not exactly the same ones on usual suspect large online retail shopfronts.

[jolt@telegrafverket.cc]

@Edent I would go with meshtastic because of the bigger reach in terms of community. Meshcore has cool functions, but it's not that big yet. BUT! Since they devices are pretty cheap, especially if ordered bare from china, why not both?

[psfshr@mastodon.me.uk]

@dan @Edent I gave up on both Meshtastic and Meshcore.

(Ran MT for ~3 mo, and MC for ~6 mo)

Meshtastic was largely dead in our area (might have better luck in a more built up area).

Meshcore seemed to be mainly somewhere for people to talk about Meshcore and send “Test!” “RX” messages back and forth.

Unless you have a known, stable, local mesh I wouldn’t rely on either for emergency use…

[taylorhayis@mastodon.world]

@Edent Neither are actually open source, I used Meshtastic for a year. Great for cities / festivals / mucking around.
Been using meshcore the last year or so.
Meshcore is MUCH more reliable for permanent setups, and usable for long range. We have like 200 meshcore nodes covering our whole state. Regularly messaging people hundreds of km away 12-14 hops.
This would be impossible on Meshtastic.

[taylorhayis@mastodon.world]

@Edent I dislike Andy Kirby, and he’s investing in / building meshcore with a kiwi dev called Liam. Expecting enshittification in the future.
I trust Meshtastic devs even less 😅

[jontheniceguy@toot.io]

@Edent from my (limited) experience, Meshtastic is better for telemetry-sending, and messaging is a side effect that people have grabbed hold of. As a result short-range comms work well. Meshcore is designed to be more of a message relaying system. Meshcore also has much longer range because of the relays. The cluster I participate in reaches from Hull to Isle of Wight.

[jontheniceguy@toot.io]

@Edent saw you asking elsewhere what people had bought. Here's my heltec V3 with a "10db antenna". It lives behind the velux blind in our bedroom.

[pini@mamot.fr]

@Edent I've attended this seession a few days ago: https://techwerkers.nl/en/events/2026-01-15/

It was recorded.

They recommend MeshCore over Meshtastic.

[edent@mastodon.social]

@pini thank you - that's useful.

[krahabors@toot.lv]

@Edent I do not have anything new or fancy, I'm sure there will be better recommendations.

[krahabors@toot.lv]

@hanscees @Edent
Basically any device with nrf controller will be good for battery use, but those with esp32 controllers are power-hungry. Even more if there is a display etc.

[edent@mastodon.social]

@krahabors I'm not interested in new or fancy. I just like tried and tested.

[hanscees@ieji.de]

@krahabors @Edent I don't know what an nrf controller is.
But I am learning: https://howtomechatronics.com/tutorials/arduino/arduino-wireless-communication-nrf24l01-tutorial/#transmitter-code

But there are low power firmware variants. https://github.com/dt267/MeshCore-Low-Power-Firmware-For-Heltec-V3-V4

However for beginners (like me also) just stick to normal firmware.

[krahabors@toot.lv]

@Edent DIY combination of nrf52840 with sx1262, usually called faketec, is good enough for me. Even without common PCB, wired dead-bug style:)
There are factory made versions of that combination now and a lot of newer, probably better options.

[krahabors@toot.lv]

@hanscees Guys in our community have found those extremely low power versions have issues with stability, probably need some more tweaking.
@Edent