Post #1551564

2026-01-25 07:32 UTC

There seem to be many Meshtastic® nodes around, it's pretty popular https://meshmap.net/ However, it seems that in order to join the network you are forced to buy hardware that uses patented trademarked radio modules (LoRa®) The [website](https://meshtastic.org/) also says: > Meshtastic® is a registered trademark of Meshtastic LLC. I don't have relevant experience, but I'm looking to maybe join such a network, and being forced to buy specific hardware to join a network that is ran (/developed?) by a single LLC company is not very appealing for a network that is supposed to be resilient, off-grid, peer-to-peer, etc So I've started looking into https://reticulum.network/ and [Nomad network](https://unsigned.io/software/Nomad_Network.html) 🤔

Replies (2)

@Jesus_666@lemmy.world 2026-01-25 11:52

There seems to be more traffic on MeshCore than on Meshtastic, probably due to its greater range. Also, the core library seems to be MIT-licensed. Besides, given the goals of Meshtastic/MeshCore (low power long range text communication without a radio license), LoRa is a sensible choice: It operates in appropriate radio bands, is power-efficient, and hardware is readily available at reasonable prices. Sure, something like DASH7 would be more open but it's also much harder to find hardware for. The most ideologically pure stack in the world won't do anything if there's not enough users to actually form a mesh. WiFi is useless when you're trying to send messages over long distances without any infrastructure beyond "I tied a few battery-powered transceivers to trees along the way". It has completely low range and high power draw. Packet radio gets you a lot of range but may require a license for legal operation. It also has high power requirements; you're not going to run your radio setup off a 1000 mAh battery for a week.

Open ##1551583
@horn_e4_beaver@discuss.tchncs.de 2026-01-25 09:36

Reticulum is pretty much developed by a single person. An immensely impressive feat for an individual but meshtastic seems to be developed by a wider group of people. Also, if you want to use the true mesh aspects of reticulum without just tunneling it over the existing internet infrastructure then you're going to want to buy some LoRa devices anyway.

Open ##1551584