0:05 I am the VP of engineering for Spec 5.
0:08 Welcome to Meshcon 2025. Uh, thank you
0:10 for joining us out here in the middle of
0:13 nowhere, Florence, Texas. Um, but it is
0:16 a great place to be. Uh, and it's a
0:19 great place to play with radio gear. Uh,
0:22 so anyway, so thank you for coming out.
0:24 Thank you for being here early. I know
0:26 we're uh we're expecting quite a few
0:28 more, but hopefully they didn't get
0:30 caught in uh in Austin traffic, but
0:31 we're going to get the get the show
0:35 rolling here. Um Meshcon, Mesh Radios.
0:39 The idea here is resilience
0:46 So uh the vision for today is to bring
0:49 innovators and creators together uh to
0:52 learn about these communitydriven
0:55 communications networks um you know
0:58 fostering collaboration education and exploration.
0:59 exploration.
1:02 So uh you know some education some
1:05 networking some community building um
1:08 and actually playing with the tech. All
1:10 right. So, we are here today to talk
1:15 about decentralized networks. So, most
1:17 people are very familiar with a
1:20 centralized network. Your cell phone is
1:22 a centralized network. When I send a
1:24 text message, that text message has to
1:27 go from my phone to the tower, which you
1:29 can actually see one a couple hundred
1:32 yards that way. Um, and then from the
1:34 tower, it bounces to the recipient's
1:38 phone. Without that tower, my phone
1:40 can't send a text message to anyone else
1:44 in that room. Centralized. Most local
1:45 Wi-Fi networks kind of work the same
1:47 way. You have to be communicating with
1:52 the hub to be a part of that network. uh
1:54 these mesh radios
1:58 and even um and even similar Wi-Fi
2:01 systems are starting to become more
2:04 decentralized, meaning every every
2:07 radio, every node in the mesh creates
2:09 the network. Uh and that is the beauty
2:12 of the mesh radios that uh we're going
2:14 to be playing with today is that they
2:16 generate their own network. You don't
2:18 need a provider. You don't need any
2:21 other resources. two or three radios can
2:25 create their own network um and they can
2:27 link together
2:37 So these radios uh for this is you know
2:38 there's probably going to be a handful
2:40 of you that that know a lot about this
2:41 but there's going to be a handful of you
2:44 that don't. Um, so these mesh radios
2:47 operate on the Laura protocol which uh
2:51 operates on the 915 MHz spectrum. Um, so
2:54 for the radio afficionados out here,
2:56 you're you're probably aware of the ISM
2:59 band. For everyone else, um, the ISM
3:03 band is the uh, in industrial,
3:06 scientific, and medical band. So, it's a
3:08 specific set of radio frequencies that
3:12 have been allocated for data packet
3:15 radios. Um, you do not need a license or
3:18 any type of permission to operate in
3:22 this band as long as you are under one
3:26 watt of um transmitting power. So
3:29 whether you are a hobbyist, whether you
3:31 are a commercial company or even the
3:35 government, um you can use this this
3:37 radio frequency which the band is
3:42 actually 9002 to 928 MHz. Um but the
3:49 9115 is the middle. Um so the 915 MHz
3:52 band is interesting um because it is a
3:54 lower bandwidth than say Wi-Fi. Most of
3:59 your most most Wi-Fi is 2.4 GHz or 5.8
4:03 GHz. Um, so it's fast, but it can't go a
4:08 long distance. 915 MHz is slower, but
4:10 you can go a much further distance. Uh,
4:12 it's got a lot better better
4:15 penetration. Um, and because it's
4:17 slower, you're going to send a lot
4:19 smaller data packets. So data packets
4:24 are usually about um 200 bytes. So in a
4:27 in a text message that's 200 characters.
4:31 Um so it's rather it's rather small. Um
4:36 but instead of feet your range is miles.
4:39 Um and again cuz these radios can link
4:41 together in a mesh you can extend that
4:44 out much further. Um over on the screen
4:47 on the side I've got a map of the current
4:49 current
4:51 um mesh that's established here in
4:53 Austin. There's a club called Austin
4:55 Mesh. You can find them um on Discord
4:59 and on Facebook. And they manage this um
5:02 this really cool dashboard. Um and we
5:06 are we're way up north
5:10 um in Florence here and we can see other
5:12 radios all the way down in South Austin
5:16 over 45 miles away. Um so that is the
5:19 power of
5:23 lowcost license free subscription free
5:27 um and these low power radios running on
5:30 this 915 MHz band. Uh the other the
5:32 other unique thing that that these
5:35 radios do is along with that data packet
5:38 uh you can also share uh GPS and
5:41 telemetry data from the radio. Um so
5:44 when you're off-rid you can stay
5:46 connected with a team.
5:50 So who are who are mesh radios for? So
5:52 industry and infrastructure um you know
5:54 that's going to be data that's going to
5:57 be uh team team communications
6:01 um and and sensor data for
6:05 security for monitoring um the outdoor
6:07 adventurer or the preparedness
6:10 communities. Uh again, this is a these
6:13 are off-grid systems. You create the
6:15 network. You control the network. Um
6:17 there's no AT&T, there's no Verizon,
6:20 there's no Starlink. You are the
6:22 network. Um so no matter where you go,
6:24 you can take these with you, create your
6:26 own network, and stay in communication
6:28 with your team. Um and then first
6:29 responders and other public safety
6:33 groups are starting to get into this as
6:36 backup or tertiary comms. Um
6:39 and the other beauty of the system
6:41 unlike other communication systems is
6:47 that because of its uh public nature
6:49 um it allows
6:52 the average citizen and the first
6:53 responders to be communicating on the
6:55 same network and having the same
6:57 information in real time where a lot of
7:01 the other uh communication bands are are
7:03 uh restricted from public access and
7:08 only uh first responders can use them.
7:11 So there are three popular protocols out
7:16 there. Um and you can switch between the
7:19 word protocol and firmware. So this is
7:21 the software that runs on the radio.
7:25 These are all lowcost uh ESP32 or nrf
7:29 52based um Laura mesh radios and they
7:31 run these three these three protocols.
7:33 Um, the most popular is currently
7:36 Meshtastic. Um, Meshcore is an
7:40 upandcomer and then Reticulum is for the
7:44 really nerdy ones. Um, it does some
7:46 really cool stuff. Um, so yeah, these
7:49 are the the three main apps that you're
7:51 going to want to play with. Again,
7:53 beginner, never done any of this before.
7:55 Start with Meshtastic,
7:59 then Mesh Core, then Reticulum.
8:03 So, uh, Meshtastic was launched in 2019.
8:05 Uh, it is an open source project and
8:07 it's become turned into a global
8:10 community. Um, they're they're
8:12 estimating about 40 to 50,000 new
8:15 meshtastic radios are entering the mesh
8:19 are being sold a month. Um, here in
8:24 Austin, I think there's like 200 radios on
8:25 on
8:29 um, scattered all over the city any day.
8:32 Um, so again, they send and receive text
8:35 messages without cell cellular data or
8:38 internet. Uh, you've got live GPS
8:41 sharing and sensor telemetry uh, visible
8:43 through the app. They allow you to broad
8:46 uh, Meshtastic allows you to broadcast
8:48 messages in three modes. And this is one
8:50 of the things that I think the average
8:54 person doesn't have access to. Um, you
8:56 can do private peer-to-peer. So, just
8:59 like a standard text message, you can do
9:02 group chats. So, just like a a group
9:04 chat in your text message app, you can
9:07 establish a private channel um an an
9:09 encrypted channel that only people who
9:11 have that encryption key and you can
9:13 communicate as a group on that. And then
9:17 third, you can broadcast to anyone. So
9:20 anyone running that same frequency, you
9:22 can broadcast a message out and if they
9:24 are running another meshtastic radio and
9:27 can receive your message, they can see
9:30 it. So that's um that's something the
9:32 the broadcasting is something really
9:35 only seen in in amateur radio um for the
9:38 young kids. It's like a walkie-talkie
9:40 um where you're just transmitting a
9:42 signal out and anyone who can receive it
9:46 can listen to you. Um you can't really
9:48 do that on a cell phone. You have to
9:51 have someone's unique unique phone
9:53 number to send them a message. This
9:56 allows you to then broadcast to anyone.
9:58 Uh Meshtastic also integr integrates
10:01 with a few mapping apps. uh one called
10:04 Atac, there's another one called Sarapo
10:06 uh which are widely used by the
10:09 military. Um anyone who's played a
10:11 first-person shooter game and has had
10:13 the map with all the dots running around
10:15 on it, it's that in real life. It's the
10:18 actual app. It's called the Android
10:20 Well, the civilian version is called the
10:23 Android team awareness kit. Uh the
10:25 actual military version is the Android
10:28 tactical awareness kit. Um but these
10:30 radios integrate with that so that you
10:34 can have uh GPS tracking and team text
10:37 message communication offline.
10:39 And then uh I think I already mentioned
10:43 that that um your communications uh can
10:46 be encrypted uh for privacy and security.
10:47 security.
10:49 Mesh Core. So Meshcore is like the the
10:52 level two. Um Meshcore has only been
10:55 around since the beginning of this year.
10:57 Um, so it's it was it really kind of
11:00 came up as a competitor to Meshtastic.
11:02 Um, it does a few things differently
11:06 that for the more experienced user um or
11:10 for more specific use cases uh I think
11:13 is really cool. So all of these radios
11:15 when they're programmed with Meshtastic,
11:17 they will constantly send out what's
11:19 called a heartbeat. Um, so about every
11:21 15 to 30 minutes they will send out a
11:24 heartbeat onto the mesh to let people
11:26 know that that radio is a part of the
11:30 mesh. Um, that's cool. That means that
11:32 you don't have to do anything and you
11:34 can find other people in the mesh. When
11:37 you have hundreds and hundreds of radios
11:39 all sending these heartbeat packets out,
11:40 it can actually start to slow down the
11:44 mesh and prevent messages from coming
11:45 through because you've got too much data
11:48 traffic happening. So, Meshcore um does
11:49 things a little bit more efficiently
11:51 where instead of sending out co uh
11:54 constant heartbeats, you manually send
11:56 out what they call an advert or an
11:59 advertisement. So, it's hey, I'm here.
12:01 Who else can hear me? Um so, that really
12:04 reduces the message traffic. Um they
12:06 also have another feature which I think
12:07 is really cool. It's called a room server.
12:09 server.
12:13 So um if if you are not in range of
12:15 other mesh radios if you send a message
12:19 out no one gets it and so and you will
12:21 get an acknow you will not get an
12:22 acknowledgement that someone has
12:25 received that. So Meshcore has this
12:28 function where you set up a radio as a
12:32 room server that that room server
12:34 basically becomes like a bulletin board.
12:37 So when my radio is in range of that
12:39 room server, I can send it a message. It
12:42 stores it on that server and someone
12:46 else can then come into range, link to
12:49 that room and read it just like a chat
12:52 room. So if you are out of range and you
12:54 come back in, you can see the history of
12:58 up to like 30 32 meages, 32 previous
12:59 messages. So, that's a great uh great
13:02 option for teams who are um moving
13:06 around in the wilderness um who might
13:09 temporarily lose range of each other. Um
13:11 but it allows you to again still still
13:14 see that message history and not have
13:17 like a gap in in information.
13:21 Um it also allows you to uh manually
13:24 configure your path routing. So uh on
13:27 the meshtastic side of the world uh the
13:30 software will automatically pick the
13:32 most efficient path for your message
13:34 because your message can can bounce and
13:37 hop across multiple radios to uh extend
13:40 the distance that you can transmit. Uh,
13:44 Meshcore allows you to uh, both do the
13:46 automatic path path planning for your
13:50 message as well as you picking the
13:52 specific radios that you want to you
13:54 want your message to bounce across off
13:58 of. Um, so when when for a group that's
14:02 really setting up their own system, um,
14:06 you can really uh fine-tune how far and
14:09 and who sees se sees your message
14:12 traffic. Um,
14:15 and yeah, so it's uh it's got some more
14:17 advanced functionality, but they're they
14:20 they're really trying to focus on making
14:23 the software lighter weight um and
14:26 easier to run for these uh you know
14:28 rather low power microcontrollers that
14:32 are that are uh running this these radio
14:35 systems. And then the last system is
14:37 called Reticulum.
14:42 Um I don't even have a full grasp on how
14:46 to describe reticulum. Um but they they
14:49 call it a uh a multi-ransport
14:53 system. So it does not care what the
14:55 device is. If the if the device can have
14:58 reticulum on it, you can communicate in
15:02 the network. So uh it's not limited to
15:05 to Laura radios. So, it can also route
15:09 over TCP IP, which is internet, Wi-Fi,
15:12 all that good stuff. Uh, and serial. So,
15:14 that means that someone with a Laura
15:17 radio can talk to someone just on a cell
15:20 phone or someone on a computer. And the
15:23 system architecture, it nothing looks
15:25 different. You're all like just
15:28 communicating on the same mesh. Um, no
15:30 matter how you're actually connected.
15:33 Um, it's a Pythonbased system, so it's
15:35 Linux native, so you can run it on a lot
15:37 of small single board computers, um, and
15:41 other server systems. Um, and again,
15:44 similar to the other protocols we're
15:46 talking about, um, are pretty modular
15:47 and you can do different routing
15:51 schemes. Um,
15:56 and the the one downside to Reticulum is
15:58 that it currently does not allow group
15:59 messaging. It's only single peer
16:03 peer-to-peer. Um but again, you share
16:08 your um your kind of username. Um and no
16:12 matter how you're connected um
16:16 Laura Internet serial um you will be
16:17 able to communicate with that person.
16:18 You really won't you really won't even
16:20 know how you're connected unless you're
16:22 actually like looking at the back end.
16:27 Uh this this little uh diagram here
16:30 shows uh me connected over to the
16:34 internet to a guy in the Chicago area.
16:37 And from there we also had a node
16:39 communicating on Laura. So this is like
16:42 a Laura connection uh with with one
16:44 Laura node also connected to the
16:47 internet. So again, you can really um
16:51 communicate over multiple different um
16:56 multiple different paths. Uh so now um
16:59 we're going to hand it over to my boss,
17:01 Mr. Amir Hussein, who's playing with a
17:02 new gadget of ours that he's really
17:05 excited about. Um Isaac, you want to get
17:08 his slides up there? [Applause]
