Secure off-grid texting for New York's Capital District

How it works

Each LoRa radio on the MeshCore network is called a node. Nodes have specific roles that are determined when you load firmware onto them.

The one you carry, a companion node, is paired to your phone over Bluetooth and handles your messages. Your companion node deliberately doesn't relay anyone else's traffic. Two companions in range of each other talk directly.

When two or more companions are too far apart to hear one other, a repeater - a relay-only node, usually mounted up high on a rooftop or hilltop, helps to securely bridge the gap.

Messages can be sent to a specific user securely - this is called a Direct Message. Messages can also be sent to a public channel, where anyone within range of the user or a repeater the user is connected to, can read their message. These are called flood messages, where every repeater repeats the message to every other repeater, up to 63 times.

Direct Messages in MeshCore are more clever: The first time you Direct Message a contact, MeshCore floods the network looking for them. Once the message gets through, the return path is recorded, and every message after that travels directly along that learned route instead of being rebroadcast by everyone. If a repeater goes offline and the path breaks, it retries a few times, then rediscovers a new route. The result is a quieter, more efficient network. You also receive a message delivery acknowledgment with Direct Messages, which you do not with flood channel messages.