0:01 Welcome back to the channel, guys. Today
0:03 is a highly requested video. It's
0:05 something I get asked all the time, and
0:06 that is how do you switch from
0:09 Meshtastic to Meshcore. With the growing
0:11 improvements in Meshcore, it is light
0:14 years ahead of Meshtastic. And yeah, you
0:15 don't want to miss out on what's been
0:17 happening lately. It is just insanely
0:19 good. So, to start with, I'm going to
0:21 take probably one of the most popular
0:24 devices for use with mesh radio stuff,
0:27 and that is the Helletech V3. So, if we
0:28 just fire this one up, we can see this
0:32 one is currently a meshtastic node. So,
0:33 we're going to change that. We're going
0:36 to convert this into a Meshcore node.
0:38 So, I've already plugged it into the
0:39 computer there. And the next thing I'm
0:42 going to do is head over to the Meshcore
0:43 flasher. So, this is flasher.meshcore.co.uk.
0:45 flasher.meshcore.co.uk.
0:47 You can see that in the toggle bar up
0:49 the top. And you're going to want to
0:52 scroll down to Heltech V3. You can
0:54 search for it in this little section
0:55 here as well. whatever node you're going
0:58 to convert. So you want to hit HTTE v3.
1:00 Now the first big difference between
1:02 Meshtastic and Meshcore is that there
1:05 are individual firmwares for the type of
1:07 RO. So basically if you want to set up a
1:09 repeater you flash the repeater
1:11 firmware. If you want to use a USB
1:13 client, you flash this one. If you want
1:15 to connect to your phone by Bluetooth,
1:18 you use this firmware here, companion
1:20 radio Bluetooth. So just click on that
1:24 and it will automatically go to the top
1:25 firmware which is the most latest. I
1:27 would advise doing that. Click on the
1:30 arrays button here. Only use this arrays
1:32 for the first ever time you're doing it.
1:35 And then just simply click on flash. And
1:37 you can use the dialogue that pops up in
1:40 Chrome browser to select your node. If
1:42 you don't know what which one it is,
1:44 just literally unplug it and plug it
1:46 back in and you'll see it pop up. So,
1:48 this is the one we want for the for the
1:50 Helltech. Click on connect. And that's
1:53 all you got to do. Just wait it out.
1:55 Shouldn't take too long. The erase
1:56 process takes a little bit of time.
1:58 Depending on your device, it might take
2:00 a bit longer. This one is looking like
2:01 it's taking a little bit longer than
2:03 normal. Sometimes it goes quick, but
2:05 don't worry about that. Wait till that's
2:06 finished. While that's doing that, we
2:08 can open up our smartphone. I've got an
2:10 Android smartphone here. Go to the Play
2:12 Store. It's the quickest way to get the
2:15 app. And you can install the app very
2:16 very simply there. Just search for
2:18 Meshcore. It will come up. And you can
2:20 also do this on iOS. Obviously, it's
2:23 exactly the same app on iOS. It looks
2:24 the same, feels the same. There's no
2:26 difference between the apps or anything
2:27 like that like there is on on
2:29 Meshtastic. So, our flashing is
2:32 complete. You can see that here. And you
2:34 should see the device, the Heltech
2:36 device is booting up. It might say
2:38 loading for a little while. This is the
2:41 device generating its keys and setting
2:43 the system up behind the scene. So, just
2:44 wait it out and then the logo will
2:47 appear and that's it. You're basically
2:49 done. And there's the Bluetooth pairing
2:51 pin on the screen. So, we're going to
2:53 open up our Mescore app for the first
2:54 time. Allow it to send you
2:56 notifications. You can do that if you
2:58 want. And then we're going to hit
3:00 connect. We'll hit on allow on that. And
3:02 then it will scan for devices. And
3:03 you'll see other devices that you've
3:04 got. I've got this other one here as
3:06 well. So, this is the one we're
3:08 interested in. I'm going to tap on that
3:11 and we should get a Bluetooth pairing
3:13 dialogue come up. That's the Bluetooth
3:14 code we're going to want to put in. So
3:20 67 6 4 0 5. Hit pair. And then it's
3:22 going to connect up and sync basically
3:24 with the device. Now at this point, this
3:25 is where you're going to want to
3:26 configure the device. It's really
3:28 simple. It's only a couple of settings.
3:31 Hit the little cog item up the top here.
3:33 First thing we're going to do is put in
3:35 a name. So, I'm just going to put in
3:37 Andy here. Don't worry about any of the
3:39 other other settings at the moment. You
3:41 can do this later on. And then we're
3:44 going to hit choose preset. Now, this is
3:45 the radio preset that you're going to
3:47 want to use. So, this is quite important
3:50 going forward. The UK has switched to EU
3:52 UK narrow. So, you want to use that.
3:55 Click on that and it will basically do
3:57 the settings. And then you can hit tick
4:00 up there. And that is basically it. So,
4:02 now it's just a waiting game to see what
4:05 this actually picks up. Meshcore is very
4:06 quiet on the airwaves. It won't transmit
4:08 a lot of the time. So, it will take
4:10 quite a long time for you to see any
4:12 activity in the area. That's one of the
4:14 reasons why it's so efficient with
4:15 bandwidth. It works very, very well
4:17 because there's not lots of stuff flying
4:19 around in the airwaves. But what you can
4:21 do is you can hit this little button
4:23 here and this will announce your
4:25 presence. So, it advertises your pre
4:28 presence on the network. You want to use
4:32 flood rooted. Hit that and basically
4:34 this is announcing you on the network.
4:36 Now if there isn't anyone around then
4:37 they're obviously not going to pick you
4:40 up. But the next best thing to do is to
4:42 head on over to the public channel. So
4:44 on Meshkore you have channels. The
4:46 public channel is already configured.
4:47 This is for everyone to use. It's like a
4:49 global channel. And I would half expect
4:50 in a minute we'll probably see some
4:52 messages come through because it's quite
4:56 a busy mesh here. So hit public. And
4:58 you'll see no messages in there. And
5:00 what I'm going to do is I'm gonna
5:02 basically fire out a message. So I'm
5:08 gonna say, "Hi, testing for YouTube." If
5:10 I can type it right. Testing for YouTube.
5:11 YouTube.
5:14 Oh, I really am useless. Um, so do that.
5:17 And then I'm going to hit the send. So
5:18 what you should hear is, look, there's
5:20 all my notes going off in the
5:21 background. So ideally what you want to
5:24 be looking for is this heard three
5:26 repeats or heard one repeat. and I'll
5:28 come on to that in a minute, but
5:29 basically that means you've been heard
5:31 by something and it's forwarded it on to
5:33 the network. And as you can see here,
5:36 um, Tuck has come back replying to my
5:39 message. So, all is well and good. We
5:42 are getting out.
5:44 So, yeah, I don't think that's going to
5:45 happen. Um, we don't really have enough
5:47 bandwidth for that. Um, but I'm just
5:50 going to say, hi guys, or thanks guys.
5:53 Send that out. So, as you can see here,
5:55 we're getting two repeats. So that
5:58 effectively means that two things in the
6:01 area have heard my message and then they
6:04 forwarded forwarded them on and those
6:06 are repeaters basically and I'll come on
6:09 to how you would set a repeater up next.
6:11 So at this point it's worth mentioning
6:13 another big difference between Meshcore
6:16 and Meshtastic is that your node or your
6:18 companion radio like this which is
6:20 connected to your phone does not repeat
6:23 any packets. So it's effectively like
6:25 running in client mute mode in
6:27 Meshtastic. Your client device will not
6:29 repeat any packets. So when we see the
6:31 repeats here, they are coming from
6:34 repeaters and repeaters run on a
6:36 completely separate firmware. Very
6:38 streamlined, very power efficient. All
6:41 they do is repeat data packets. So to
6:43 set a Meshcore repeater up, we take
6:45 another HTTech V3. There's so many
6:47 devices supported now, guys. So, the
6:48 chances are whatever Meshtastic device
6:50 you're using will be supported by
6:53 Meshcore. Anyway, so we're going to head
6:54 back over to the Flasher and we're going
6:58 to scroll down to Heltech V3 again.
7:00 Click on that and this time we're going
7:02 to use the repeater firmware. So, click
7:04 on the repeater firmware. So, again,
7:06 we're going to hit arrays device on this
7:09 one, then flash. Then, we are going to
7:12 select the CP2102, which is the Heltech
7:16 V3. Connect, and then flash. So, this is
7:18 going to go about its business, do its
7:20 stuff. Right. So, that's done and it is
7:22 restarting. Now, this will look slightly
7:24 different on the screen to the
7:26 companion. Um, we got to please wait
7:28 there and it when it finally boots up.
7:30 So, there we go. It says Heltech
7:32 repeater. Now, don't disconnect it from
7:34 the computer because you can see now
7:37 what's appeared up here is a configure
7:40 via USB button. This is so useful. So,
7:41 this allows you to configure your
7:44 repeater um using USB. So, as soon as
7:46 you've hit that, a window will pop up.
7:47 It was slightly out of view. So, click
7:50 on connect. Then click on your device
7:52 again, and you should see the repeater
7:54 configurator. So, here you can set
7:56 things like the repeater name. So, I'm
7:58 just going to stick a a test in front of
8:01 that so we can identify it clearly. Test
8:04 Heltech repeater. Um, and then you want
8:06 to save settings. So, that will save the
8:08 settings to the device. You can also put
8:10 in the repeater location. You can even
8:13 use a visual map to basically place your
8:15 point for your repeater and do that.
8:16 We're not going to do that in this
8:18 particular one. You can set an admin
8:21 password and a guest password. I'd
8:23 advise just doing the admin password
8:25 because guest access is quite handy for
8:26 users. You just leave that blank and
8:28 then anyone will be able to just log
8:30 into the repeater. They won't be able to
8:31 change any settings, but they can get
8:33 useful kind of signal information from
8:35 that repeater. Um, which is quite useful
8:37 for people. So, if you leave that blank,
8:39 that's kind of helping everybody out.
8:41 Um, and basically set an admin password.
8:44 So, so I'm just going to stick in 1 2 3
8:47 4 5 6 7 8. Um, if you leave that blank,
8:49 the default is password just for for
8:51 reference. So, the other thing we're
8:53 going to want to do here is we are going
8:55 to want to change the preset to the UK
8:58 narrow mode as well. So, it matches our
9:00 companion radio and that's pre-filled
9:02 all those boxes. So, just hit save
9:06 settings and that will be applied. Now,
9:08 you can also hit send advert here as
9:10 well, which just announces your repeater
9:12 um on the network. Same way as it does
9:14 on the companions, and then you're good
9:16 to go. You can just disconnect that from
9:17 the computer or however you're going to
9:19 power this. That's obviously the next
9:21 thing you have to think about if you're
9:23 going to put this up as a repeater. Most
9:24 people stick these in the loft, run them
9:26 off of like a big power bank or mains
9:29 even if you've got it up there. Um and
9:31 you can then just connect, you know, a
9:32 decent antenna. That's not a decent
9:34 antenna. That's the bare minimum. And
9:36 that is a whole another subject
9:38 completely. Now, it's worth noting at
9:39 this point you are going to want to do a
9:42 power cycle or hit the reboot button in
9:44 the configurator just so that it applies
9:46 these new settings. Once that's
9:49 rebooted, you should see like a white
9:51 light come on probably on here any
9:53 second now. Um, and that will basically
9:56 be your repeater doing its advert. So,
9:58 that repeater has now appeared in our
10:01 contacts. And there it is. So the cool
10:03 thing about this now guys is you put
10:05 this repeater somewhere else um it
10:06 doesn't really matter where it is you
10:08 you are able to then manage it through
10:11 the mesh core management system. So if
10:13 you just tap on the repeater there go
10:16 manage this point you can just wait 10
10:18 seconds to basically get into the
10:20 repeater management uh system or you can
10:23 donate £5 to um the developer of this
10:25 app which is Liam Cotle who's done an
10:27 absolutely amazing job. So this just
10:29 helps to cover his work. You hit on
10:30 continue if you wait and then you'll get
10:33 into the repeater login. Then we can put
10:39 in our password. One um two 3 4 5 6 7 8
10:42 login and we should then get into the
10:44 the system. So now you can do everything
10:46 that you can do in that repeater
10:48 management um in the app which is really
10:50 cool. Set position, do an advert, all
10:52 these other things. It's a good idea at
10:55 this point to hit the sync clock button
10:56 because these things don't have clocks
10:58 built in. So that will actually send
11:00 your smartphone's time to the device and
11:01 every time you turn it off and reboot
11:03 it, it's going to reset that. So it's a
11:05 good idea to do that, but not super
11:07 essential. Now that you've got your
11:09 repeater set up, it will mesh with other
11:11 repeaters. So that's the mesh part of
11:13 it. These don't mesh, but the repeaters
11:15 do. So if there are other repeaters in
11:18 the area, your new repeater here will
11:20 mesh with those and expand the network.
11:23 That's how mesh core works. So and that
11:24 you don't have to do anything. It will
11:26 just do that completely automatically.
11:28 So guys, I hope this has helped. Maybe
11:29 you're in one of these areas where
11:31 everybody's moved over to Meshcore and
11:33 you feel abandoned and you just want to
11:35 get in on the action. Hopefully this
11:37 video will have helped you um get
11:39 started with that. It's really not a big
11:41 learning curve. You just got to get over
11:43 the initial hurdle. So Meshco is
11:44 absolutely booming at the moment.
11:46 There's huge numbers of nodes and
11:48 repeaters popping up everywhere and we
11:50 are nearly at the point where we're sort
11:53 of connecting north and south of the UK.
11:55 So it won't be long before this happens.
11:58 But we do need obviously more nodes out
12:00 there to more repeaters to help kind of
12:02 bridge that gap. This is something that
12:05 just we haven't been able to do before
12:07 um with Meshtastic. It just didn't work
12:09 because we just didn't have um the
12:11 ability to send messages reliably over
12:13 over many many hops. Um so this is
12:16 something quite exciting um that has
12:18 never ever really been done before. And
12:20 it's also going to help us learn how to
12:23 optimize meshes in this, you know, in
12:25 really, really busy environments because
12:27 we all know the theory doesn't always
12:29 work. You've got to try this stuff in
12:31 practice. So yeah, guys, if you haven't
12:32 already, give it a shot. Join our
12:35 Discord links below in the description.
12:37 Um, reach out in the comments if you've
12:39 got any questions, any if you need any
12:41 help. The community is brilliant. It's
12:43 so friendly and everybody's kind of just
12:44 loves to just get involved with this
12:47 stuff and just make the mesh better. And
12:49 what better time to be messing around
12:50 with this sort of stuff when you know
12:52 all this stuff's going on about privacy
12:54 and the government and they're, you
12:56 know, invading your phones with all
12:58 these crazy things. Also, another thing,
13:00 don't forget to subscribe to the
13:02 official Meshcore channel. Um, I've been
13:03 doing more stuff on this channel cuz
13:05 it's got a bit more reach, but I will be
13:07 doing some more content on the official
13:09 Meshcore channel once it starts sort of,
13:11 you know, really taking off. So, yeah,
13:13 follow that channel, get subscribed to
13:15 that, and you won't miss a beat. When it
13:17 comes to Meshcore, there are of course
13:18 so many other things with Meshcore that
13:20 I haven't covered in this video. DMs for
13:22 one, you know, tracing, all the cool
13:24 stuff you can do with Meshcore, but I
13:26 wanted to keep it simple, but it still
13:28 ended up like nearly 15 minutes long.
13:30 Anyway, guys, hope you enjoyed this one.
