cc @mc-hamster. In some cases storeForwardPluginRadio can be null ;-)
~/development/meshtastic/meshtastic-esp32$ bin/exception_decoder.py -e .pio/build/tbeam/firmware.elf ex
stack:
0x401db467: StoreForwardPluginRadio::sendPayload(unsigned int, bool) at /home/kevinh/development/meshtastic/meshtastic-esp32/src/plugins/esp32/StoreForwardPlugin.cpp:235
0x400e7cbd: StoreForwardPlugin::runOnce() at /home/kevinh/development/meshtastic/meshtastic-esp32/src/plugins/esp32/StoreForwardPlugin.cpp:225
0x400d4cca: concurrency::OSThread::run() at /home/kevinh/development/meshtastic/meshtastic-esp32/src/concurrency/OSThread.cpp:45
0x400f015d: ThreadController::runOrDelay() at /home/kevinh/development/meshtastic/meshtastic-esp32/.pio/libdeps/tbeam/Thread/ThreadController.cpp:153
0x400da070: loop() at /home/kevinh/development/meshtastic/meshtastic-esp32/src/main.cpp:621
0x400ff709: loopTask(void*) at /home/kevinh/.platformio/packages/framework-arduinoespressif32/cores/esp32/main.cpp:19
Signed-off-by: Kevin Hester <kevinh@geeksville.com>
Instead of holding onto only the last measurement, hold onto a copy of the last MeshPacket containing a measurement
This will make it easier to display the last time received
make DHT sensor reads more reliable
user preference for Farenheit vs Celsius
specifying a tag/commit/etc (I haven't tried specifying a branch?)
Without specifying the hash, the build breaks for anyone who already had
a repo (the CI build doesn't see this because it always pulls from scratch)
cc @crossan007 & @mc-hamster
@mc-hamster seems to work pretty good for me, so I'll send a PR to you
for the dev-http branch.
I'll push out an android alpha build later today (once the build is
complete). Once this new device load is out in the field _future_
device builds will support updating spiffs from android. (i.e. device
loads older than 1.1.9 must be updated to 1.1.9 or later before spiffs
support is implemented on the device side - so some users might need to
update twice before the new spiffs contents will appear on their device)
Typo fixed. I placed the latest javascript library files into the static folder. Updated the root file handler to be able to serve both compressed and uncompressed files.
+ // NOTE: The phone app needs to know the ls_secs value so it can properly expect sleep behavior.
+ // So even if we internally use 0 to represent 'use default' we still need to send the value we are
+ // using to the app (so that even old phone apps work with new device loads).
+#define MAX_POWER 27
// if we use 20 we are limited to 1% duty cycle or hw might overheat. For continuous operation set a limit of 17
+// In theory up to 27 dBm is possible, but the modules installed in most radios can cope with a max of 20. So BIG WARNING
+// if you set power to something higher than 17 or 20 you might fry your board.
Could cause hangs on the way into sleep (and enormous power consumption).
Instead of checking for rx packet length (which only changes at completion)
check if we've received preamble bits but haven't yet received a completed
packet interrupt.
notes:
wait to sleep loop problem
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
Can not send yet, busyRx
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
vs normal run
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
radio wait to sleep, txEmpty=0
Starting low level send (id=0x53fe1dd0 Fr0xe5 To0xff, WantAck0, HopLim3 encrypted)
Completed sending (id=0x53fe1dd0 Fr0xe5 To0xff, WantAck0, HopLim3 encrypted)
bogus wakes on TBEAMS because the USB->SERIAL chip pulls the RX input
to ground. This feature is no longer needed because in !isRouter
nodes we force the node to never sleep anyways when on USB power.
// this doesn't work on TBEAMs when the USB is depowered (causes bogus interrupts)
// So we disable this "wake on serial" feature - because now when a TBEAM (only) has power connected it
// never tries to go to sleep if the user is using the API
// gpio_wakeup_enable((gpio_num_t)SERIAL0_RX_GPIO, GPIO_INTR_LOW_LEVEL);
Sample usage:
First configure device to use @mc-hamster's new wifi stuff:
meshtastic --set wifi_ssid mylanname --set wifi_password mylanpassword
Then reboot the device (so wifi starts up).
(assuming device was assigned addr 192.168.81.45)
meshtastic --info --host 192.168.81.45
(See the usual device info you previously had to get over USB)
Caveats:
* Currently we are limiting to one active TCP connection open at once, if
you open a new session the old one is closed automatically
* There are no access controls/authentication needed to open a TCP
connection to the device
* Currently main.cpp is kinda dumb about how we should schedule work and
we rely on too many helper loop() functions. Very soon in my queue
(related to all the other cleanup) is to add a basic notion of coroutines,
so that we can get away from freertos threads and this old school arduino
loop function. Once that cleanup happens we can the a) have much lower
battery consumption (always) and b) super fast response for all operations.
btw - from my read of the NMEA, the lowest value that means 'has a valid
position' is 1 not 2. But I only know this because you pointed me at
it ;-)
Thanks!
oh - I think I found the problem (probably)! we were isolating gpio12 (which isn't used on other boards) to save power during sleep. gpio12 is the button for this board. @thomslik would you mind pulling this commit and seeing if it works better?
However, disabled until someone with suitable hardware can test and report
back.
@slavino and @tschundler would you be willing to try it with your boards?
You'll need to uncomment the following line in configuration.h
// #define BATTERY_PIN 35 // A battery voltage measurement pin, voltage divider connected here to measure battery voltage
@professr I noticed you added a "newStatus" observable to the GPS class.
Do you remember why you didn't remove the old GPS status (which seemed
to be dumber). Is it just because you didn't want to risk breaking
MeshService? (I assume) In this change I removed the old Observable
and all seems well (just using newStatus everywhere).
/**
* Generate a short suffix used to disambiguate channels that might have the same "name" entered by the human but different PSKs.
* The ideas is that the PSK changing should be visible to the user so that they see they probably messed up and that's why they
their nodes
* aren't talking to each other.
*
* This string is of the form "#name-XY".
*
* Where X is a letter from A to Z (base26), and formed by xoring all the bytes of the PSK together.
* Y is not yet used but should eventually indicate 'speed/range' of the link
*
* This function will also need to be implemented in GUI apps that talk to the radio.
*
* https://github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-device/issues/269
*/
const char *getChannelName();
@cyclomies thank you for the prodding and help. I'm happy to add more
detail, can you insert a few questions inline? Then I'll answer and
hopefully that will be enough to be useful for others.
The NVS copies of hte BLE pairing info for clients were getting corrupted
occasionally. So I went googling and found some plausible bug reports
but nothing that was an exact match. Then I looked at the arduino-esp32
binaries for the ESP-IDF framework. They were fairly old (Jan 20).
Looking through the commits on ESP-IDF release3.3 it seems like there have
been a few fixes for mutual exclusion errors wrt bluetooth. So I punted
and tried updating ESP-IDF to latest and everything seems fairly solid
now. Currently running a long test run with three nodes.
Meshtastic prompted me to get a couple boards to try, and I had to figure out what frequency. Canada uses the same US902-928 as the US, add it to the list for simplicity.
Not sure where to find an "official" reference, but there's a reference here: https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/docs/lorawan/frequencies-by-country.html
This was a good one. Two problems
1) We've apparently always been using hte sparkfun API the wrong way, but
but we mostly got lucky.
2) Changing to use the API correctly (asyncronously) exposed a bug in
the library - fixed in a seperate commit
The SH1106 is almost indistinguisable from a SSD1306.
- the nr of columns in the sh1106 is 132 vs 128
- use the proper includes/library functions when in use
Note - we do this not by using the uart wake feature, but by the lower
power GPIO edge feature. Recommend sending "Z" 0x5A - because that has
many edges. Send the character 4 times to make sure the device is awake
Somehow nodenum was getting reset to zero (and saved to flash - which is
bad because it makes the failure permanent). So I've changed nodenum
selection to occur after we load the saved preferences (and we try to keep
nodenum stable in that case).
I'm puzzled as to how it ever got set to zero (unless there *shudder*
is some errant pointer that clobbered it). But next week I'm turning
4 byte nodenums back on, which will make this moot - because they
will always be based on macaddr and the current process where nodes
haggle with the mesh to pick a unique one-byte nodenum will be gone.
Hi, I think the problem you were having building for ESP32 was due to
a funny thing. Notice the #define for INTERRUPT_ATTR. That macro expands
to IRAM_ATTR - which is a special flag the ESP32 requires for _any_ code
that is going to be called from an ISR. So that the code is guaranteed
to be in RAM (the ESP32 uses a clever scheme where the FLASH is actually
high speed serial flash and all reads/writes are actually only happening
to a small number of pages in RAM and they have a driver that is constantly
copying blocks they need into that ram. This essentially how VM works
for desktop computers, but in their case they are paging to FLASH.
But for code that runs in an interrupt handler must _always_ be in RAM
because if you took a 'page fault' for that code being missing in RAM they
can't nicely do their clever VM scheme.
So that's all good. The problem was - apparently GCC for the ESP32 has a
a bug when that attribute is applied in the class declaration. So
I moved it out into the cpp file and all seems well now.
Because I was dumb and accidentally ran some code that configured gpio 0
as an output and that was enough to smoke the xtal that was preinstalled
between P0.0 and P0.1.
all using US frequencies. This build fixes this (and makes the build
system cleaner in general).
If you are building your own builds in the IDE you'll need to start
setting an environment variable called COUNTRY to your two letter
country code (or leave unset to get US frequencies). See new comment
in platformio.ini.
* preflightSleep, notifySleep, notifyDeepSleep now allow arbitrary
drivers/devices/software to register for sleep notification.
* Use the proceeding to clean up MeshRadio - now the mesh radio is more
like an independent driver that doesn't care so much about other systems
* clean up MeshService so that it can work with zero MeshRadios added.
This is a prelude to supporting boards with multiple interfaces (wifi,
extra LORA radios etc) and allows development/testing in sim with a bare
ESP32 board
* Remove remaining ESP32 dependencies from the bare simulation target
this allows running on anything that implements the arduino API
because the ESP32 implementation will be different from NRF52
to make this possible I needed to decouple knowlege about bluetooth from
our mesh service. Instead mesh service now uses the Obserable pattern
to let any interested consumer get notified of important mesh changes
(currently that is only bluetooth, but really we should do the same
thing for decoupling the GUI 'app' from the mesh service)
@girtsf would you mind reviewing my Observer changes? I haven't written
C++ code in a long time ;-)
unique to each architecture. For now, we have "esp32" and "bare"
esp32 is the old esp stuff
bare is an target suitable for emulation that doesn't require any
particular hardware to run (no bluetooth, no i2c devices, no spi devices)
* to allow changing to new mesh transport
* to allow a different chipset for the radio
* to allow testing on hardware with a SimRadio
* new "bare" build env for a devboard with virtually no hardware
* make buttons optional
// We don't set useDisplay until setup() is called, because some boards have a declaration of this object but the device
// is never found when probing i2c and therefore we don't call setup and never want to do (invalid) accesses to this device.
Also - now that he fixed that, we can leave PMU interrupts on across sleep
Hopefully the following line will properly credit him in the magic github
universe...
Co-authored-by: spattinson <spattinson@users.noreply.github.com>
* Break out debug screen to a separate class and make it thread-safe.
* Break out power state to a separate class.
* Show battery voltage, charging & USB status on debug screen.
* Show GPS lock / no lock
* Fix an off-by-one that I introduced earlier in `drawRows`.
# Can optionally take parameters from the github UI, more info here https://github.blog/changelog/2020-07-06-github-actions-manual-triggers-with-workflow_dispatch/#:~:text=You%20can%20now%20create%20workflows,the%20workflow%20is%20run%20on.
# workflow_dispatch:
# inputs:
# Only want to be run if a new tag starting with v is pushed.
push:
branches:
- "!*"
tags:
- "v*"
jobs:
build:
runs-on:ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name:Checkout code
uses:actions/checkout@v2
with:
submodules:'recursive'
# get github branch and tag names as ${{ steps.branch_name.outputs.SOURCE_TAG }}
inexpensive GPS mesh 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
Meshtastic® is a project that lets you use
inexpensive GPS mesh 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
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.
Typical time between recharging the radios should be about eight days.
This project is currently early-alpha, but if you have questions please [join our discussion forum](https://meshtastic.discourse.group/).
This project is is currently in beta-testing - if you have questions please [join our discussion forum](https://meshtastic.discourse.group/).
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.
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.
## Supported hardware
We currently support three models of radios. The [TTGO T-Beam](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000119152086.html), [TTGO LORA32](https://www.banggood.com/LILYGO-TTGO-LORA32-868Mhz-SX1276-ESP32-Oled-Display-bluetooth-WIFI-Lora-Development-Module-Board-p-1248652.html?cur_warehouse=UK) and the [Heltec LoRa 32](https://heltec.org/project/wifi-lora-32/). Most users 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.
See (meshtastic.org) for 3D printable cases.
We currently support three models of radios.
## Installing the firmware
Prebuilt binaries for the supported radios is available in our [releases](https://github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-esp32/releases). Your initial installation has to happen over USB from your Mac, Windows or Linux PC. Once our software is installed, all future software updates happen over bluetooth from your phone.
- TTGO T-Beam (usually the recommended choice)
- [T-Beam V1.1 w/ NEO-6M - special Meshtastic version](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001178678568.html) (Includes built-in OLED display and they have **preinstalled** the meshtastic software)
- [T-Beam V0.7 w/ NEO-6M](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000574335430.html) (will work but **you must use the tbeam0.7 firmware ** - but the T-Beam V1.0 or later are better!)
- board labels "TTGO T22_V07 20180711"
- 3D printable cases
- [T-Beam V0](https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3773717) (GPS and LoRa antenna misaligned if GPS placed as pictured)
The instructions currently require a few commmand lines, but it should be pretty straightforward. Please post comments on our group chat if you have problems or successes. Steps to install:
- [TTGO LORA32](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000211331316.html) - No GPS
Note: The GPS and LoRa stock antennas should be placed in a way, that the GPS antenna faces the sky and the LoRa antenna radiates 360 degrees horizontally. For better GPS reception you might want to [upgrade the GPS antenna](https://meshtastic.discourse.group/t/the-importance-of-gps-antennas-and-request-to-3d-case-documentation-people/1505) and to properly align the antennas you might want to upgrade to a LoRa antenna that can be adjusted to radiate into the right directions.
**Make sure to get the frequency for your country**
- US/JP/AU/NZ/CA - 915MHz
- CN - 470MHz
- EU - 868MHz, 433MHz
- full list of LoRa frequencies per region is available [here](https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/docs/lorawan/frequencies-by-country.html)
Getting a version that includes a screen is optional, but highly recommended.
## Firmware Installation
Prebuilt binaries for the supported radios are available in our [releases](https://github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-esp32/releases). Your initial installation has to happen over USB from your Mac, Windows or Linux PC. Once our software is installed, all future software updates happen over bluetooth from your phone.
Be **very careful** to install the correct load for your board. In particular the popular 'T-BEAM' radio from TTGO is not called 'TTGO-Lora' (that is a different board). So don't install the 'TTGO-Lora' build on a TBEAM, it won't work correctly.
Please post comments on our [group chat](https://meshtastic.discourse.group/) if you have problems or successes.
### Installing from a GUI - Windows and Mac
1. Download and unzip the latest Meshtastic firmware [release](https://github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-esp32/releases).
2. Download [ESPHome Flasher](https://github.com/esphome/esphome-flasher/releases) (either x86-32bit Windows or x64-64 bit Windows).
3. Connect your radio to your USB port and open ESPHome Flasher.
4. If your board is not showing under Serial Port then you likely need to install the drivers for the CP210X serial chip. In Windows you can check by searching “Device Manager” and ensuring the device is shown under “Ports”.
5. If there is an error, download the drivers [here](https://www.silabs.com/products/development-tools/software/usb-to-uart-bridge-vcp-drivers), then unzip and run the Installer application.
6. In ESPHome Flasher, refresh the serial ports and select your board.
7. Browse to the previously downloaded firmware and select the correct firmware based on the board type, country and frequency.
8. Select Flash ESP.
9. Once complete, “Done! Flashing is complete!” will be shown.
10. Debug messages sent from the Meshtastic device can be viewed with a terminal program such as [PuTTY](https://www.putty.org/) (Windows only). Within PuTTY, click “Serial”, enter the “Serial line” com port (can be found at step 4), enter “Speed” as 921600, then click “Open”.
### Installing from a commandline
These instructions currently require a few commmand lines, but it should be pretty straightforward.
1. Install "pip". Pip is the python package manager we use to get the esptool installer app. Instructions [here](https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/install-pip-for-python/). If you are using OS-X, see these [special instructions](docs/software/install-OSX.md).
2. Run "pip install --upgrade esptool" to get esptool installed on your machine.
3. Connect your radio to your USB port.
4. Confirm that your device is talking to your PC by running "esptool.py chip_id". The Heltec build also works on the TTGO LORA32 radio. You should see something like:
1. Purchase a radio (see above) with the correct frequencies for your country (915MHz for US or JP, 470MHz for CN, 433MHz and 870MHz for EU).
2. Install "pip". Pip is the python package manager we use to get the esptool installer app. Instructions [here](https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/install-pip-for-python/).
3. Run "pip install --upgrade esptool" to get esptool installed on your machine
4. Connect your radio to your USB port
5. Confirm that your device is talking to your PC by running "esptool.py chip_id". The Heltec build also works on the TTGO LORA32 radio. You should see something like:
```
mydir$ esptool.py chip_id
esptool.py v2.6
@@ -51,14 +107,19 @@ Warning: ESP32 has no Chip ID. Reading MAC instead.
MAC: 24:6f:28:b5:36:71
Hard resetting via RTS pin...
```
6. cd into the directory where the release zip file was expanded.
7. Install the correct firmware for your board with "device-install.sh firmware-_board_-_country_.bin". For instance "./device-install.sh firmware-HELTEC-US-0.0.3.bin".
Note: If you have previously installed meshtastic, you don't need to run this full script instead just run "esptool.py --baud 921600 write_flash 0x10000 firmware-_board_-_country_.bin". This will be faster, also all of your current preferences will be preserved.
5. cd into the directory where the release zip file was expanded.
6. Install the correct firmware for your board with `device-install.sh -f firmware-_board_-_country_.bin`.
Note: If you have previously installed meshtastic, you don't need to run this full script instead just run `esptool.py --baud 921600 write_flash 0x10000 firmware-_board_-_country_-_version_.bin`. This will be faster, also all of your current preferences will be preserved.
Trying to flash firmware-TBEAM-US-0.1.8.bin, but first erasing and writing system information
esptool.py v2.6
Found 2 serial ports
@@ -120,29 +181,33 @@ Hash of data verified.
Leaving...
Hard resetting via RTS pin...
```
8. The board will boot and show the Meshtastic logo.
9. Please post a comment on our chat so we know if these instructions worked for you ;-). If you find bugs/have-questions post there also - we will be rapidly iterating over the next few weeks.
## Meshtastic Android app
The source code for the (optional) Meshtastic Android app is [here](https://github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-Android).
7. The board will boot and show the Meshtastic logo.
8. Please post a comment on our chat so we know if these instructions worked for you ;-). If you find bugs/have-questions post there also - we will be rapidly iterating over the next few weeks.
Alpha test builds are current available by opting into our alpha test group. See (www.meshtastic.org) for instructions.
# Meshtastic Android app
After our rate of change slows a bit, we will make beta builds available here (without needing to join the alphatest group):
[](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.geeksville.mesh&referrer=utm_source%3Dgithub%26utm_medium%3Desp32-readme%26utm_campaign%3Dmeshtastic-esp32%2520readme%26anid%3Dadmob&pcampaignid=pcampaignidMKT-Other-global-all-co-prtnr-py-PartBadge-Mar2515-1)
The companion (optional) Meshtastic Android app is [here](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.geeksville.mesh&referrer=utm_source%3Dgithub-dev-readme). You can also download it on Google Play.
# Python API
We offer a [python API](https://github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-python) that makes it easy to use these devices to provide mesh networking for your custom projects.
# Development
We'd love to have you join us on this merry little project. Please see our [development documents](./docs/software/sw-design.md) and [join us in our discussion forum](https://meshtastic.discourse.group/).
We'd love to have you join us on this merry little project. Please see our [development documents](./docs/software/sw-design.md) and [join us in our discussion forum](https://meshtastic.discourse.group/).
# Credits
This project is run by volunteers. Past contributors include:
This project is run by volunteers. We are a friendly group and welcome any contribution (code fixes, documentation, features, bug reports etc...). We try to be good about listing contributor names in release notes, but it has become unwieldy for the main-devs to keep updating the list below and we've neglected it too long. If you'd like your name included in this list please send a pull request to edit this README and simply add your line yourself. Thank you very much for your help!
*@astro-arphid: Added support for 433MHz radios in europe.
*@claesg: Various documentation fixes and 3D print enclosures
*@girtsf:So far our CI system, but soon lots of device improvements
-@astro-arphid: Added support for 433MHz radios in europe.
-@claesg: Various documentation fixes and 3D print enclosures
-@girtsf:Lots of improvements
-@spattinson: Fixed interrupt handling for the AXP192 part
# IMPORTANT DISCLAIMERS AND FAQ
For a listing of currently missing features and a FAQ click [here](docs/faq.md).
For a listing of currently missing features and a FAQ click [here](docs/faq.md).
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.
### Uses
* Outdoor sports where cellular coverage is limited. (Hiking, Skiing, Boating, Paragliding, Gliders etc..)
* Applications where closed source GPS communicators just won't cut it (it is easy to add features for glider pilots etc...)
* Secure long-range communication within groups without depending on cellular providers
* Finding your lost kids ;-)
[](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlNbMbVZlHI "Meshtastic early demo")
### Features
Not all of these features are fully implemented yet - see **important** disclaimers below. But they should be in by the time we decide to call this project beta (three months?)
* Very long battery life (should be about eight days with the beta software)
* Built in GPS and [LoRa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRa) radio, but we manage the radio automatically for you
* Long range - a few miles per node but each node will forward packets as needed
* Shows direction and distance to all members of your channel
* Directed or broadcast text messages for channel members
* Open and extensible codebase supporting multiple hardware vendors - no lock in to one vendor
* 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.
* Eventually (within a couple of months) we should have a modified version of Signal that works with this project.
* Very easy sharing of private secured channels. Just share a special link or QR code with friends and they can join your encrypted mesh
This project is currently in early alpha - if you have questions please [join our discussion forum](https://meshtastic.discourse.group/).
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 [forum](https://meshtastic.discourse.group/).
# Updates
Note: Updates are happening almost daily, only major updates are listed below. For more details see our chat, github releases or the Android alpha tester emails.
* 03/03/2020 - 0.0.9 of the Android app and device code is released. Still an alpha but fairly functional.
* 02/25/2020 - 0.0.4 of the Android app is released. This is a very early alpha, see below to join the alpha-testers group.
* 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/meshtastic/Meshtastic-esp32/blob/master/README.md) for instructions.
* 02/20/2020 - Our first alpha release (0.0.3) of the radio software is ready brave early people.
## Meshtastic Android app
Once out of alpha the companion Android application will be released here:
[](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.geeksville.mesh&referrer=utm_source%3Dhomepage%26anid%3Dadmob)
But if you want the bleeding edge app now, we'd love to have your help testing. Three steps to opt-in to the alpha- test:
1. Join [this Google group](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/meshtastic-alpha-testers) with the account you use in Google Play.
2. Go to this [URL](https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.geeksville.mesh) to opt-in to the alpha test.
3. If you encounter any problems or have questions, post in our [forum](https://meshtastic.discourse.group/) and we'll help.
If you'd like to help with development, the source code is [on github](https://github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-Android).
## Supported hardware
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.
Instructions for installing prebuilt firmware can be found [here](https://github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-esp32/blob/master/README.md).
For a nice printable cases:
1. TTGO T-Beam V0 see this [design](https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3773717) by [bsiege](https://www.thingiverse.com/bsiege).
2. TTGO T_Beam V1 see this [design](https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3830711) by [rwanrooy](https://www.thingiverse.com/rwanrooy) or this [remix](https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3949330) by [8ung](https://www.thingiverse.com/8ung)
3. Heltec Lora32 see this [design](https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3125854) by [ornotermes](https://www.thingiverse.com/ornotermes).
# IMPORTANT DISCLAIMERS AND FAQ
For a listing of currently missing features and a FAQ click [here](faq.md).
This project is still pretty young but moving at a pretty good pace. Not all features are fully implemented in the current alpha builds.
Most of these problems should be solved by the beta release (within three months):
* 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 ;-)
* Encryption is turned off for now
* A number of (straightforward) software work items have to be completed before battery life matches our measurements, currently battery life is about three days. Join us on chat if you want the spreadsheet of power measurements/calculations.
* The current Android GUI is slightly ugly still
* The Android API needs to be documented better
* The mesh protocol is turned off for now, currently we only send packets one hop distant. The mesh feature will be turned on again [soonish](https://github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-esp32/issues/3).
* No one has written an iOS app yet. But some good souls [are talking about it](https://github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-esp32/issues/14) ;-)
For more details see the [device software TODO](https://github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-esp32/blob/master/docs/software/TODO.md) or the [Android app TODO](https://github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-Android/blob/master/TODO.md).
# FAQ
If you have a question missing from this faq, please [ask in our discussion forum](https://meshtastic.discourse.group/). And if you are feeling extra generous send in a pull-request for this faq.md with whatever we answered ;-).
## Q: Which of the various supported radios should I buy?
Basically you just need the radio + (optional but recommended) battery. The TBEAM is usually better because it has gps and huge battery socket. The Heltec is basically the same hardware but without the GPS (the phone provides position data to the radio in that case, so the behavior is similar - but it does burn some battery in the phone). Also the battery for the Heltec can be smaller.
In addition to Aliexpress, (banggood.com) usually has stock and faster shipping, or Amazon. If buying a TBEAM, make sure to buy a version that includes the OLED screen - this project doesn't absolutely require the screen, but we use it if is installed.
@claesg has added links to various 3D printable cases, you can see them at (www.meshtastic.org).
## Q: Do you have plans to commercialize this project
Nope. though if some other person/group wanted to use this software and a more customized device we think that would be awesome (as long as they obey the GPL license).
## Q: Does this project use patented algorithms?
(Kindly borrowed from the geeks at [ffmpeg](http://ffmpeg.org/legal.html))
We do not know, we are not lawyers so we are not qualified to answer this. Also we have never read patents to implement any part of this, so even if we were qualified we could not answer it as we do not know what is patented. Furthermore the sheer number of software patents makes it impossible to read them all so no one (lawyer or not) could answer such a question with a definite no. We are merely geeks experimenting on a fun and free project.
Use naive flooding at first (FIXME - do some math for a 20 node, 3 hop mesh. A single flood will require a max of 20 messages sent)
Then move to MPR later (http://www.olsr.org/docs/report_html/node28.html). Use altitude and location as heursitics in selecting the MPR set
compare to db sync algorithm?
what about never flooding gps broadcasts. instead only have them go one hop in the common case, but if any node X is looking at the position of Y on their gui, then send a unicast to Y asking for position update. Y replies.
If Y were to die, at least the neighbor nodes of Y would have their last known position of Y.
We don't collect any personal identifying information.
If you have opted-in to analytics (thank you - that helps us know what things we need to improve), we'll receive anonymized information about user behavior. i.e. which screens you used in the app etc... We never
capture usernames, the contents of your texts or your location.
This is an open-source project run by hobbyists and we try to be completely transparent. If you have questions on this policy, please file [a github issue](https://github.com/meshtastic/meshtastic-esp32/issues) and we'll reply/clarify/correct.
We use the same channel maps as LoRaWAN (though this is not LoRaWAN).

See [this site](https://www.rfwireless-world.com/Tutorials/LoRa-channels-list.html) for more information.
## LoRaWAN Europe Frequency Band
The maximum power allowed is +14dBM.
### 433 MHz
There are eight channels defined with a 0.2 MHz gap between them.
Channel zero starts at 433.175 MHz
### 870 MHz
There are eight channels defined with a 0.3 MHz gap between them.
Channel zero starts at 865.20 MHz
## LoRaWAN for North America
LoRaWAN defines 64, 125 kHz channels from 902.3 to 914.9 MHz increments.
The maximum output power for North America is +30 dBM.
The band is from 902 to 928 MHz. It mentions channel number and its respective channel frequency. All the 13 channels are separated by 2.16 MHz with respect to the adjacent channels.
Channel zero starts at 903.08 MHz center frequency.
Items to complete soon (next couple of alpha releases).
- lower wait_bluetooth_secs to 30 seconds once we have the GPS power on (but GPS in sleep mode) across light sleep. For the time
being I have it set at 2 minutes to ensure enough time for a GPS lock from scratch.
- remeasure wake time power draws now that we run CPU down at 80MHz
# AXP192 tasks
- figure out why this fixme is needed: "FIXME, disable wake due to PMU because it seems to fire all the time?"
- "AXP192 interrupt is not firing, remove this temporary polling of battery state"
- make debug info screen show real data (including battery level & charging) - close corresponding github issue
# Medium priority
Items to complete before the first beta release.
- good source of battery/signal/gps icons https://materialdesignicons.com/
- research and implement better mesh algorithm - investigate changing routing to https://github.com/sudomesh/LoRaLayer2 ?
- check fcc rules on duty cycle. we might not need to freq hop. https://www.sunfiretesting.com/LoRa-FCC-Certification-Guide/
- use fuse bits to store the board type and region. So one load can be used on all boards
- the BLE stack is leaking about 200 bytes each time we go to light sleep
- rx signal measurements -3 marginal, -9 bad, 10 great, -10 means almost unusable. So scale this into % signal strength. preferably as a graph, with an X indicating loss of comms.
- assign every "channel" a random shared 8 bit sync word (per 4.2.13.6 of datasheet) - use that word to filter packets before even checking CRC. This will ensure our CPU will only wake for packets on our "channel"
- Note: we do not do address filtering at the chip level, because we might need to route for the mesh
- add basic crypto - https://github.com/chegewara/esp32-mbedtls-aes-test/blob/master/main/main.c https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_cipher_mode_of_operation - use ECB at first (though it is shit) because it doesn't require us to send 16 bytes of IV with each packet. Then OFB per example. Possibly do this crypto at the data payload level only, so that all of the packet routing metadata
is in cleartext (so that nodes will route for other radios that are cryptoed with a key we don't know)
- add frequency hopping, dependent on the gps time, make the switch moment far from the time anyone is going to be transmitting
- share channel settings over Signal (or qr code) by embedding an an URL which is handled by the MeshUtil app.
- publish update articles on the web
# Pre-beta priority
During the beta timeframe the following improvements 'would be nice' (and yeah - I guess some of these items count as features, but it is a hobby project ;-) )
- If the phone doesn't read fromradio mailbox within X seconds, assume the phone is gone and we can stop queing location msgs
for it (because it will redownload the nodedb when it comes back)
- Figure out why the RF95 ISR is never seeing RH_RF95_VALID_HEADER, so it is not protecting our rx packets from getting stomped on by sends
- fix the frequency error reading in the RF95 RX code (can't do floating point math in an ISR ;-)
- See CustomRF95::send and fix the problem of dropping partially received packets if we want to start sending
- make sure main cpu is not woken for packets with bad crc or not addressed to this node - do that in the radio hw
- triple check fcc compliance
- pick channel center frequency based on channel name? "dolphin" would hash to 900Mhz, "cat" to 905MHz etc? allows us to hide the concept of channel # from hte user.
- scan to find channels with low background noise? (Use CAD mode of the RF95 to automatically find low noise channels)
- make a no bluetooth configured yet screen - include this screen in the loop if the user hasn't yet paired
- if radio params change fundamentally, discard the nodedb
- reneable the bluetooth battery level service on the T-BEAM, because we can read battery level there
# Spinoff project ideas
- an open source version of https://www.burnair.ch/skynet/
- a paragliding app like http://airwhere.co.uk/
- a version with a solar cell for power, just mounted high to permanently provide routing for nodes in a valley. Someone just pointed me at disaster.radio
- How do avalanche beacons work? Could this do that as well? possibly by using beacon mode feature of the RF95?
- provide generalized (but slow) internet message forwarding servie if one of our nodes has internet connectivity
# Low priority
Items after the first final candidate release.
- use variable length arduino Strings in protobufs (instead of current fixed buffers)
- use BLEDevice::setPower to lower our BLE transmit power - extra range doesn't help us, it costs amps and it increases snoopability
- make an install script to let novices install software on their boards
- use std::map<NodeInfo\*, std::string> in node db
- make a HAM build: yep - that's a great idea. I'll add it to the TODO. should be pretty painless - just a new frequency list, a bool to say 'never do encryption' and use hte callsign as that node's unique id. -from Girts
- don't forward redundant pings or ping responses to the phone, it just wastes phone battery
- use https://platformio.org/lib/show/1260/OneButton if necessary
- don't send location packets if we haven't moved
- scrub default radio config settings for bandwidth/range/speed
- answer to pings (because some other user is looking at our nodeinfo) with our latest location (not a stale location)
- show radio and gps signal strength as an image
- only BLE advertise for a short time after the screen is on and button pressed - to save power and prevent people for sniffing for our BT app.
- make mesh aware network timing state machine (sync wake windows to gps time)
- split out the software update utility so other projects can use it. Have the appload specify the URL for downloads.
- read the PMU battery fault indicators and blink/led/warn user on screen
- the AXP debug output says it is trying to charge at 700mA, but the max I've seen is 180mA, so AXP registers probably need to be set to tell them the circuit can only provide 300mAish max. So that the low charge rate kicks in faster and we don't wear out batteries.
- increase the max charging rate a bit for 18650s, currently it limits to 180mA (at 4V). Work backwards from the 500mA USB limit (at 5V) and let the AXP charge at that rate.
- discard very old nodedb records (> 1wk)
- using the genpartitions based table doesn't work on TTGO so for now I stay with my old memory map
- We let anyone BLE scan for us (FIXME, perhaps only allow that until we are paired with a phone and configured)
- use two different buildenv flags for ttgo vs lora32. https://docs.platformio.org/en/latest/ide/vscode.html#key-bindings
- sim gps data for testing nodes that don't have hardware
- do debug serial logging to android over bluetooth
- break out my bluetooth OTA software as a seperate library so others can use it
- Heltec LoRa32 has 8MB flash, use a bigger partition table if needed - TTGO is 4MB but has PSRAM
- add a watchdog timer
- handle millis() rollover in GPS.getTime - otherwise we will break after 50 days
- report esp32 device code bugs back to the mothership via android
# Done
- change the partition table to take advantage of the 4MB flash on the wroom: http://docs.platformio.org/en/latest/platforms/espressif32.html#partition-tables
- wrap in nice MeshRadio class
- add mesh send & rx
- make message send from android go to service, then to mesh radio
- make message receive from radio go through to android
- test loopback tx/rx path code without using radio
- notify phone when rx packets arrive, currently the phone polls at startup only
- figure out if we can use PA_BOOST - yes, it seems to be on both boards
- implement new ble characteristics
- have MeshService keep a node DB by sniffing user messages
- have a state machine return the correct FromRadio packet to the phone, it isn't always going to be a MeshPacket. Do a notify on fromnum to force the radio to read our state machine generated packets
- send my_node_num when phone sends WantsNodes
- have meshservice periodically send location data on mesh (if device has a GPS)
- implement getCurrentTime() - set based off gps but then updated locally
- make default owner record have valid usernames
- message loop between node 0x28 and 0x7c
- check in my radiolib fixes
- figure out what is busted with rx
- send our owner info at boot, reply if we see anyone send theirs
- add manager layers
- confirm second device receives that gps message and updates device db
- send correct hw vendor in the bluetooth info - needed so the android app can update different radio models
- correctly map nodeids to nodenums, currently we just do a proof of concept by always doing a broadcast
- add interrupt detach/sleep mode config to lora radio so we can enable deepsleep without panicing
- make jtag work on second board
- implement regen owner and radio prefs
- use a better font
- make nice screens (boot, about to sleep, debug info (gps signal, #people), latest text, person info - one frame per person on network)
- turn framerate from ui->state.frameState to 1 fps (or less) unless in transition
- switch to my gui layout manager
- make basic gui. different screens: debug, one page for each user in the user db, last received text message
- make button press cycle between screens
- save our node db on entry to sleep
- fix the logo
- sent/received packets (especially if a node was just reset) have variant of zero sometimes - I think there is a bug (race-condtion?) in the radio send/rx path.
- DONE dynamic nodenum assignment tasks
- make jtag debugger id stable: https://askubuntu.com/questions/49910/how-to-distinguish-between-identical-usb-to-serial-adapters
- reported altitude is crap
- good tips on which bands might be more free https://github.com/TheThingsNetwork/ttn/issues/119
- finish power measurements (GPS on during sleep vs LCD on during sleep vs LORA on during sleep) and est battery life
- make screen sleep behavior work
- make screen advance only when a new node update arrives, a new text arrives or the user presses a button, turn off screen after a while
- after reboot, channel number is getting reset to zero! fix!
- send user and location events much less often
- send location (or if not available user) when the user wakes the device from display sleep (both for testing and to improve user experience)
- make real implementation of getNumOnlineNodes
- very occasionally send our position and user packet based on the schedule in the radio info (if for nothing else so that other nodes update last_seen)
- show real text info on the text screen
- apply radio settings from android land
- cope with nodes that have 0xff or 0x00 as the last byte of their mac
- allow setting full radio params from android
- add receive timestamps to messages, inserted by esp32 when message is received but then shown on the phone
- update build to generate both board types
- have node info screen show real info (including distance and heading)
- blink the power led less often
- have radiohead ISR send messages to RX queue directly, to allow that thread to block until we have something to send
- move lora rx/tx to own thread and block on IO
- keep our pseudo time moving forward even if we enter deep sleep (use esp32 rtc)
- for non GPS equipped devices, set time from phone
- GUI on oled hangs for a few seconds occasionally, but comes back
- update local GPS position (but do not broadcast) at whatever rate the GPS is giving it
- don't send our times to other nodes
- don't trust times from other nodes
- draw compass rose based off local walking track
- add requestResponse optional bool - use for location broadcasts when sending tests
- post sample video to signal forum
- support non US frequencies
- send pr https://github.com/ThingPulse/esp8266-oled-ssd1306 to tell them about this project
- document rules for sleep wrt lora/bluetooth/screen/gps. also: if I have text messages (only) for the phone, then give a few seconds in the hopes BLE can get it across before we have to go back to sleep.
- wake from light sleep as needed for our next scheduled periodic task (needed for gps position broadcasts etc)
- turn bluetooth off based on our sleep policy
- blink LED while in LS sleep mode
- scrolling between screens based on press is busted
- Use Neo-M8M API to put it in sleep mode (on hold until my new boards arrive)
- update the prebuilt bins for different regulatory regions
- don't enter NB state if we've recently talked to the phone (to prevent breaking syncing or bluetooth sw update)
- have sw update prevent BLE sleep
- manually delete characteristics/descs
- leave lora receiver always on
- protobufs are sometimes corrupted after sleep!
- stay awake while charging
- check gps battery voltage
- if a position report includes ground truth time and we don't have time yet, set our clock from that. It is better than nothing.
- retest BLE software update for both board types
- report on wikifactory
- send note to the guy who designed the cases
- turn light sleep on aggressively (while lora is on but BLE off)
- Use the Periodic class for both position and user periodic broadcasts
- don't treat north as up, instead adjust shown bearings for our guess at the users heading (i.e. subtract one from the other)
- sendToMesh can currently block for a long time, instead have it just queue a packet for a radio freertos thread
- don't even power on bluetooth until we have some data to send to the android phone. Most of the time we should be sleeping in a lowpower "listening for lora" only mode. Once we have some packets for the phone, then power on bluetooth
until the phone pulls those packets. Ever so often power on bluetooth just so we can see if the phone wants to send some packets. Possibly might need ULP processor to help with this wake process.
- do hibernation mode to get power draw down to 2.5uA https://lastminuteengineers.com/esp32-sleep-modes-power-consumption/
- fix GPS.zeroOffset calculation it is wrong
- (needs testing) fixed the following during a plane flight:
Have state machine properly enter deep sleep based on loss of mesh and phone comms.
Default to enter deep sleep if no LORA received for two hours (indicates user has probably left the mesh).
- (fixed I think) text messages are not showing on local screen if screen was on
- add links to todos
- link to the kanban page
- add a getting started page
- finish mesh alg reeval
- ublox gps parsing seems a little buggy (we shouldn't be sending out read solution commands, the device is already broadcasting them)
- turn on gps https://github.com/sparkfun/SparkFun_Ublox_Arduino_Library/blob/master/examples/Example18_PowerSaveMode/Example18_PowerSaveMode.ino
- switch gps to 38400 baud https://github.com/sparkfun/SparkFun_Ublox_Arduino_Library/blob/master/examples/Example11_ResetModule/Example2_FactoryDefaultsviaSerial/Example2_FactoryDefaultsviaSerial.ino
- Use Neo-M8M API to put it in sleep mode
- use gps sleep mode instead of killing its power (to allow fast position when we wake)
- enable fast lock and low power inside the gps chip
- Make a FAQ
- add a SF12 transmit option for _super_ long range
The Bluetooth API is design to have only a few characteristics and most polymorphism comes from the flexible set of Google Protocol Buffers which are sent over the wire. We use protocol buffers extensively both for the bluetooth API and for packets inside the mesh or when providing packets to other applications on the phone.
## A note on MTU sizes
This device will work with any MTU size, but it is highly recommended that you call your phone's "setMTU function to increase MTU to 512 bytes" as soon as you connect to a service. This will dramatically improve performance when reading/writing packets.
## MeshBluetoothService
This is the main bluetooth service for the device and provides the API your app should use to get information about the mesh, send packets or provision the radio.
For a reference implementation of a client that uses this service see [RadioInterfaceService](https://github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-Android/blob/master/app/src/main/java/com/geeksville/mesh/service/RadioInterfaceService.kt). Typical flow when
a phone connects to the device should be the following:
* SetMTU size to 512
* Read a RadioConfig from "radio" - used to get the channel and radio settings
* Read (and write if incorrect) a User from "user" - to get the username for this node
* Read a MyNodeInfo from "mynode" to get information about this local device
* Write an empty record to "nodeinfo" to restart the nodeinfo reading state machine
* Read from "nodeinfo" until it returns empty to build the phone's copy of the current NodeDB for the mesh
* Read from "fromradio" until it returns empty to get any messages that arrived for this node while the phone was away
* Subscribe to notify on "fromnum" to get notified whenever the device has a new received packet
* Read that new packet from "fromradio"
* Whenever the phone has a packet to send write to "toradio"
For definitions (and documentation) on FromRadio, ToRadio, MyNodeInfo, NodeInfo and User protocol buffers see [mesh.proto](https://github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-protobufs/blob/master/mesh.proto)
UUID for the service: 6ba1b218-15a8-461f-9fa8-5dcae273eafd
Each characteristic is listed as follows:
UUID
Properties
Description (including human readable name)
8ba2bcc2-ee02-4a55-a531-c525c5e454d5
read
fromradio - contains a newly received FromRadio packet destined towards the phone (up to MAXPACKET bytes per packet).
After reading the esp32 will put the next packet in this mailbox. If the FIFO is empty it will put an empty packet in this
mailbox.
f75c76d2-129e-4dad-a1dd-7866124401e7
write
toradio - write ToRadio protobufs to this characteristic to send them (up to MAXPACKET len)
ed9da18c-a800-4f66-a670-aa7547e34453
read,notify,write
fromnum - the current packet # in the message waiting inside fromradio, if the phone sees this notify it should read messages
until it catches up with this number.
The phone can write to this register to go backwards up to FIXME packets, to handle the rare case of a fromradio packet was dropped after the esp32 callback was called, but before it arrives at the phone. If the phone writes to this register the esp32 will discard older packets and put the next packet >= fromnum in fromradio.
When the esp32 advances fromnum, it will delay doing the notify by 100ms, in the hopes that the notify will never actally need to be sent if the phone is already pulling from fromradio.
Note: that if the phone ever sees this number decrease, it means the esp32 has rebooted.
ea9f3f82-8dc4-4733-9452-1f6da28892a2
read
mynode - read this to access a MyNodeInfo protobuf
d31e02e0-c8ab-4d3f-9cc9-0b8466bdabe8
read, write
nodeinfo - read this to get a series of NodeInfos (ending with a null empty record), write to this to restart the read statemachine that returns all the node infos
b56786c8-839a-44a1-b98e-a1724c4a0262
read,write
radio - read/write this to access a RadioConfig protobuf
6ff1d8b6-e2de-41e3-8c0b-8fa384f64eb6
read,write
owner - read/write this to access a User protobuf
Re: queue management
Not all messages are kept in the fromradio queue (filtered based on SubPacket):
* only the most recent Position and User messages for a particular node are kept
* all Data SubPackets are kept
* No WantNodeNum / DenyNodeNum messages are kept
A variable keepAllPackets, if set to true will suppress this behavior and instead keep everything for forwarding to the phone (for debugging)
## Other bluetooth services
This document focuses on the core mesh service, but it is worth noting that the following other Bluetooth services are also
provided by the device.
### BluetoothSoftwareUpdate
The software update service. For a sample function that performs a software update using this API see [startUpdate](https://github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-Android/blob/master/app/src/main/java/com/geeksville/mesh/service/SoftwareUpdateService.kt).
| e74dd9c0-a301-4a6f-95a1-f0e1dbea8e1e | write,read | total image size, 32 bit, write this first, then read read back to see if it was acceptable (0 mean not accepted) |
| e272ebac-d463-4b98-bc84-5cc1a39ee517 | write | data, variable sized, recommended 512 bytes, write one for each block of file |
| 4826129c-c22a-43a3-b066-ce8f0d5bacc6 | write | crc32, write last - writing this will complete the OTA operation, now you can read result |
| 5e134862-7411-4424-ac4a-210937432c77 | read,notify | result code, readable but will notify when the OTA operation completes |
| GATT_UUID_SW_VERSION_STR/0x2a28 | read | We also implement these standard GATT entries because SW update probably needs them: |
| GATT_UUID_MANU_NAME/0x2a29 | read | |
| GATT_UUID_HW_VERSION_STR/0x2a27 | read | |
### DeviceInformationService
Implements the standard BLE contract for this service (has software version, hardware model, serial number, etc...)
### BatteryLevelService
Implements the standard BLE contract service, provides battery level in a way that most client devices should automatically understand (i.e. it should show in the bluetooth devices screen automatically)
4. Edit configuration.h and comment out *one* of the following two lines (depending on which board you are using):
```
// #define T_BEAM_V10
#define HELTEC_LORA32
```
5. Plug the radio into your USB port
6. Type "pio run -t upload" (This command will fetch dependencies, build the project and install it on the board via USB)
7. Platform IO also installs a very nice VisualStudio Code based IDE, see their [tutorial](https://docs.platformio.org/en/latest/tutorials/espressif32/arduino_debugging_unit_testing.html) if you'd like to use it
## Decoding stack traces
If you get a crash, you can decode the addresses from the `Backtrace:` line:
1. Save the `Backtrace: 0x....` line to a file, e.g., `backtrace.txt`.
2. Run `bin/exception_decoder.py backtrace.txt` (this uses symbols from the
last `firmware.elf`, so you must be running the same binary that's still in
Use naive flooding at first (FIXME - do some math for a 20 node, 3 hop mesh. A single flood will require a max of 20 messages sent)
Then move to MPR later (http://www.olsr.org/docs/report_html/node28.html). Use altitude and location as heursitics in selecting the MPR set
compare to db sync algorithm?
what about never flooding gps broadcasts. instead only have them go one hop in the common case, but if any node X is looking at the position of Y on their gui, then send a unicast to Y asking for position update. Y replies.
If Y were to die, at least the neighbor nodes of Y would have their last known position of Y.
## approach 1
* send all broadcasts with a TTL
* periodically(?) do a survey to find the max TTL that is needed to fully cover the current network.
* to do a study first send a broadcast (maybe our current initial user announcement?) with TTL set to one (so therefore no one will rebroadcast our request)
* survey replies are sent unicast back to us (and intervening nodes will need to keep the route table that they have built up based on past packets)
* count the number of replies to this TTL 1 attempt. That is the number of nodes we can reach without any rebroadcasts
* repeat the study with a TTL of 2 and then 3. stop once the # of replies stops going up.
* it is important for any node to do listen before talk to prevent stomping on other rebroadcasters...
* For these little networks I bet a max TTL would never be higher than 3?
## approach 2
* send a TTL1 broadcast, the replies let us build a list of the nodes (stored as a bitvector?) that we can see (and their rssis)
* we then broadcast out that bitvector (also TTL1) asking "can any of ya'll (even indirectly) see anyone else?"
* if a node can see someone I missed (and they are the best person to see that node), they reply (unidirectionally) with the missing nodes and their rssis (other nodes might sniff (and update their db) based on this reply but they don't have to)
* given that the max number of nodes in this mesh will be like 20 (for normal cases), I bet globally updating this db of "nodenums and who has the best rssi for packets from that node" would be useful
* once the global DB is shared, when a node wants to broadcast, it just sends out its broadcast . the first level receivers then make a decision "am I the best to rebroadcast to someone who likely missed this packet?" if so, rebroadcast
## approach 3
* when a node X wants to know other nodes positions, it broadcasts its position with want_replies=true. Then each of the nodes that received that request broadcast their replies (possibly by using special timeslots?)
* all nodes constantly update their local db based on replies they witnessed.
* after 10s (or whatever) if node Y notices that it didn't hear a reply from node Z (that Y has heard from recently ) to that initial request, that means Z never heard the request from X. Node Y will reply to X on Z's behalf.
* could this work for more than one hop? Is more than one hop needed? Could it work for sending messages (i.e. for a msg sent to Z with want-reply set).
## approach 4
look into the literature for this idea specifically.
* don't view it as a mesh protocol as much as a "distributed db unification problem". When nodes talk to nearby nodes they work together
to update their nodedbs. Each nodedb would have a last change date and any new changes that only one node has would get passed to the
other node. This would nicely allow distant nodes to propogate their position to all other nodes (eventually).
* handle group messages the same way, there would be a table of messages and time of creation.
* when a node has a new position or message to send out, it does a broadcast. All the adjacent nodes update their db instantly (this handles 90% of messages I'll bet).
* Occasionally a node might broadcast saying "anyone have anything newer than time X?" If someone does, they send the diffs since that date.
* essentially everything in this variant becomes broadcasts of "request db updates for >time X - for _all_ or for a particular nodenum" and nodes sending (either due to request or because they changed state) "here's a set of db updates". Every node is constantly trying to
build the most recent version of reality, and if some nodes are too far, then nodes closer in will eventually forward their changes to the distributed db.
* construct non ambigious rules for who broadcasts to request db updates. ideally the algorithm should nicely realize node X can see most other nodes, so they should just listen to all those nodes and minimize the # of broadcasts. the distributed picture of nodes rssi could be useful here?
* possibly view the BLE protocol to the radio the same way - just a process of reconverging the node/msgdb database.
Since one of the main goals of this project is long battery life, it is important to consider that in our software/protocol design. Based on initial measurements it seems that the current code should run about three days between charging, and with a bit more software work (see the [TODO list](TODO.md)) a battery life of eight days should be quite doable. Our current power measurements/model is in [this spreadsheet](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ft1bS3iXqFKU8SApU8ZLTq9r7QQEGESYnVgdtvdT67k/edit?usp=sharing).
## States
From lower to higher power consumption.
* Super-deep-sleep (SDS) - everything is off, CPU, radio, bluetooth, GPS. Only wakes due to timer or button press. We enter this mode only after no radio comms for a few hours, used to put the device into what is effectively "off" mode.
onEntry: setBluetoothOn(false), call doDeepSleep
onExit: (standard bootup code, starts in DARK)
* deep-sleep (DS) - CPU is off, radio is on, bluetooth and GPS is off. Note: This mode is never used currently, because it only saves 1.5mA vs light-sleep
(Not currently used)
* light-sleep (LS) - CPU is suspended (RAM stays alive), radio is on, bluetooth is off, GPS is off. Note: currently GPS is not turned
off during light sleep, but there is a TODO item to fix this.
onIdle: (if we wake because our led blink timer has expired) blink the led then go back to sleep until we sleep for ls_secs
onExit: setGPSPower(true), start trying to get gps lock: gps.startLock(), once lock arrives service.sendPosition(BROADCAST)
* No bluetooth (NB) - CPU is running, radio is on, GPS is on but bluetooth is off, screen is off.
onEntry: setBluetoothOn(false)
onExit:
* running dark (DARK) - Everything is on except screen
onEntry: setBluetoothOn(true)
onExit:
* full on (ON) - Everything is on
onEntry: setBluetoothOn(true), screen.setOn(true)
onExit: screen.setOn(false)
## Behavior
### events that increase CPU activity
* At cold boot: The initial state (after setup() has run) is DARK
* While in DARK: if we receive EVENT_BOOT, transition to ON (and show the bootscreen). This event will be sent if we detect we woke due to reset (as opposed to deep sleep)
* While in LS: Once every position_broadcast_secs (default 15 mins) - the unit will wake into DARK mode and broadcast a "networkPing" (our position) and stay alive for wait_bluetooth_secs (default 30 seconds). This allows other nodes to have a record of our last known position if we go away and allows a paired phone to hear from us and download messages.
* While in LS: Every send_owner_interval (defaults to 4, i.e. one hour), when we wake to send our position we _also_ broadcast our owner. This lets new nodes on the network find out about us or correct duplicate node number assignments.
* While in LS/NB/DARK: If the user presses a button (EVENT_PRESS) we go to full ON mode for screen_on_secs (default 30 seconds). Multiple presses keeps resetting this timeout
* While in LS/NB/DARK: If we receive new text messages (EVENT_RECEIVED_TEXT_MSG), we go to full ON mode for screen_on_secs (same as if user pressed a button)
* While in LS: while we receive packets on the radio (EVENT_RECEIVED_PACKET) we will wake and handle them and stay awake in NB mode for min_wake_secs (default 10 seconds)
* While in NB: If we do have packets the phone (EVENT_PACKETS_FOR_PHONE) would want we transition to DARK mode for wait_bluetooth secs.
* While in DARK/ON: If we receive EVENT_BLUETOOTH_PAIR we transition to ON and start our screen_on_secs timeout
* While in NB/DARK/ON: If we receive EVENT_NODEDB_UPDATED we transition to ON (so the new screen can be shown)
* While in DARK: While the phone talks to us over BLE (EVENT_CONTACT_FROM_PHONE) reset any sleep timers and stay in DARK (needed for bluetooth sw update and nice user experience if the user is reading/replying to texts)
### events that decrease cpu activity
* While in ON: If PRESS event occurs, reset screen_on_secs timer and tell the screen to handle the pess
* While in ON: If it has been more than screen_on_secs since a press, lower to DARK
* While in DARK: If time since last contact by our phone exceeds phone_timeout_secs (15 minutes), we transition down into NB mode
* While in DARK or NB: If nothing above is forcing us to stay in a higher mode (wait_bluetooth_secs, min_wake_secs) we will lower down to LS state
* While in LS: If either phone_sds_timeout_secs (default 2 hr) or mesh_sds_timeout_secs (default 2 hr) are exceeded we will lower into SDS mode for sds_secs (default 1 yr) (or a button press). (Note: phone_sds_timeout_secs is currently disabled for now, because most users
are using without a phone)
* Any time we enter LS mode: We stay in that until an interrupt, button press or other state transition. Every ls_secs (default 1 hr) and let the arduino loop() run one iteration (FIXME, not sure if we need this at all), and then immediately reenter lightsleep mode on the CPU.
TODO: Eventually these scheduled intervals should be synchronized to the GPS clock, so that we can consider leaving the lora receiver off to save even more power.
TODO: In NB mode we should put cpu into light sleep any time we really aren't that busy (without declaring LS state) - i.e. we should leave GPS on etc...
# Low power consumption tasks
General ideas to hit the power draws our spreadsheet predicts. Do the easy ones before beta, the last 15% can be done after 1.0.
* don't even power on the gps until someone else wants our position, just stay in lora deep sleep until press or rxpacket (except for once an hour updates)
* (possibly bad idea - better to have lora radio always listen - check spreadsheet) have every node wake at the same tick and do their position syncs then go back to deep sleep
* lower BT announce interval to save battery
* change to use RXcontinuous mode and config to drop packets with bad CRC (see section 6.4 of datasheet) - I think this is already the case
* have mesh service run in a thread that stays blocked until a packet arrives from the RF95
* platformio sdkconfig CONFIG_PM and turn on modem sleep mode
* keep cpu 100% in deepsleep until irq from radio wakes it. Then stay awake for 30 secs to attempt delivery to phone.
* use https://lastminuteengineers.com/esp32-sleep-modes-power-consumption/ association sleep pattern to save power - but see https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf/issues/2070 and https://esp32.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=12182 it seems with BLE on the 'easy' draw people are getting is 80mA
* stop using loop() instead use a job queue and let cpu sleep
* measure power consumption and calculate battery life assuming no deep sleep
* do lowest sleep level possible where BT still works during normal sleeping, make sure cpu stays in that mode unless lora rx packet happens, bt rx packet happens or button press happens
* optionally do lora messaging only during special scheduled intervals (unless nodes are told to go to low latency mode), then deep sleep except during those intervals - before implementing calculate what battery life would be with this feature
* see section 7.3 of https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/learn_tutorials/8/0/4/RFM95_96_97_98W.pdf and have hope radio wake only when a valid packet is received. Possibly even wake the ESP32 from deep sleep via GPIO.
* never enter deep sleep while connected to USB power (but still go to other low power modes)
* when main cpu is idle (in loop), turn cpu clock rate down and/or activate special sleep modes. We want almost everything shutdown until it gets an interrupt.
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