this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2025
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Oh meshtastic is really cool but even without GPS broadcasting, it is FAR from private. There are some serious flaws with its encryption apparently that the devs don't want to address, and im like 99% sure you can just be triangulated anyway.
That being said, meshtastic is awesome and everyone should try it. Its a lot of fun and you can "meet" cool people in your community who are kind of makerspace-adjacent and usually kind in general.
Also don't listen to the meshcore grifters, meshcore is proprietary and requires you to pay for licenses to use its full feature set. They're like reverse Linux users who just show up whenever meshtastic is mentioned to try to convince you to give your freedoms away.
Are there actually enough users that I can stumble upon others in radio mesh range?
So the radio mesh range depends on a couple factors but the short answer is "yes, easily."
The long answer is that the world record for longest direct meshtastic/LoRa message is 90km, but you can easily get 1/10th that with some buildings and whatnot blocking the way. Getting really good antennas and sticking a node way up high like in your attic, on your roof, or in a tree and using a personal device closer to the ground that bounces off of it is the most "ideal" scenario for a home setup. I currently talk with people three cities over regularly, and there are about 110 nodes in my area and constantly growing.
Because there are no cellphone towers, you're kind of responsible for getting your node high up if nobody else has set up a
ROUTERnode on a nearby mountain (by the way the router role is not the same as your home router, its supposed to be like a cellphone tower but way up on a mountain, not a rooftop of a tall building).And if you're the first person in your area, Heltec often sells their chipsets in 2 pack bundles with cases and batteries. Give one to a friend and ask them to pay it forward if they like it!
If you want to get started, you have two basic starter choices: the cheaper Heltec V3 (or now V4) based on ESP32, or the more expensive Heltec T114 based on RAK. The former is more powerful but drains battery like crazy, and the latter is more power efficient but lacks features like Store & Forward. There are other brands of board makers, but Heltec is the entry tier (and both are pretty solid from what I can tell of the two units I have). There is lots of room for DIY builds too if you are looking to do custom shells for on-person devices or enclosures+beefy antennas for outdoor units.
Some of us like (and play with) both systems - both are fun and have their individual pros and cons.
as a side note nothing is paywalled off in meshcore however there is a soft lock (10 second wait) for some bits. Not saying I like / agree with it but worth mentioning its not a hard pay wall.
Well-done-you