Mesh networking with MeshCore

While everyone has heard of Meshtastic, who hasn't, not many compared to that have so far heard of MeshCore, a new mesh based messaging system that works on 868MHz in a very similar way to Meshtastic but addresses some of the issues that has, mainly around routing.

MeshCore uses pretty much the same hardware that the other stuff runs on, so switching your mesh over should be simply a case of reflashing the firmware and reconfiguring things, for devices operating as repeaters you can simply use a repeater-specific firmware and all the device will do is repeat traffic, nothing else, unlike the other system where every device repeats which could potentially be detrimental and cause messages never to get through.

I'm planning on effectively deploying MeshCore in my local area as neither system seems to be in use by anyone else at the moment and this could be useful, it's also forming part of my emergency comms arrangement for the day that might happen which if events of May 2025 in Spain and Portugal are anything to go by could happen any day without any warning.

I currently have a test repeater running at home, albeit indoors, based on a Raspberry Pi Pico and a Waveshare LoRa board that uses the SX1262 LoRa chip, the antenna is a Paradar indoor antenna for 868MHz and looks very similar to a WiFi antenna, this repeater sits on top of a curtain rail in my flat and gets recharged periodically by a power bank, the Waveshare supplied 600mAh LiPo battery does last a while but not as long as I would like, the coverage is around the local area.

MeshCore has been around a few months now and is heavily promoted by Andy Kirby on his YouTube channel so go check him out if you want to learn more, he's been with MeshCore from the get-go and has already established a decent mesh in the south-east by changing many devices over to MeshCore.