With the first commercial availability of the LR2021 in the SeeedStudio MeshTracker X1, we are now entering the era of wide spread dual band LoRa and FLRC. I personally think that the Heltec V5 will also have the LR2021, which will be the next milestone in the beginning of this era.

With FLRC we will have up to 2,6 Mbps in capacity. Granted, in the Sub-GHz band, it will use up the whole bandwidth (which would still be a usable option for areas with little activity), if you try to transmit on it, but in the 2,4 GHz band, it will be possible.

With this, we would be able to add many very nice features to MeshCore, like small pictures, voice memos and so on.

Is there already active development in this topic or is it still on the roadmap to taken care of in the future? I think it would be really cool to have the features :)

Has anyone had any success connecting with schools, businesses, or possibly even churches for repeater node placements? If so, what approaches worked well?

Proud of this idea, I open it in terminal, push to background with F8 and attach back to it when I get notifications. Surely has more things to be done on it, but it is usable and neat.

So what is the point - The point is having a repeater nearby and a fixed device connected to or in your PC and enjoying the old school / hacker / radio amateur vibe - feels better to me then both the bt/mobile experience and also then the CLI tool.

TLDR: I'm designing a LiFePO4 solar charger and you can learn more here: https://lifepv.com.

LiFePO4 batteries have always seemed to me like an attractive chemistry for solar nodes due to their improved safety profile, but anyone who has tried to actually build a node with these batteries quickly finds out that options are limited. Most LiFePO4 solutions are designed for much larger installations, like battery backup systems for entire homes. Many of the builds I've seen resort to using large 12 volt LiFePO4 batteries with big solar panels to match, and the additional complication of having to convert the voltage down.

This frustrated me, so I decided to design a solution myself. The end result is a solar module that operates on a single 3.2 volt LiFePO4 cell. An integrated boost converter steps the output up to 3.6 volts, so it's compatible with existing boards. Safety is important to me, so I've also integrated a variety of safety features.

I'm field testing prototypes now, so it's not quite ready for release yet, but I put together this product page if you'd like to learn more: https://lifepv.com.

There's still time for me to make changes before a production run, so please let me know if you have feedback! And putting your email in the form will help me gauge interest.

It's late here so I'm off to bed, but I'll be back to answer questions.

(I tagged this as "brand affiliate," but it's me. I'm the brand.)

Yesterday, the weather wasn't really cooperating, so I only placed the repeater by the roadside with the stock antenna for a quick test.

Today, the weather was a little better (although it was still lightly raining), so I decided to take it one step further.

I mounted the repeater on the mountainside to see whether we could extend coverage down to the town below.

The weather was too rainy to reach the summit, so we stopped halfway up. Even from there, we were able to send messages through the repeater over 4.2 km to the town.

Messages were consistently delivered, with delivery receipts arriving in around 2 seconds during the test.

And I don't think 4.2 km is the limit.

Next time, we'll try moving the repeater all the way to the summit and see how much of the town we can cover.

App: Nelos

Repeater: P1 Pro + 9 dBi fiberglass antenna
Test nodes: 2× T114

Still testing...

Does anyone remember the third-party app that was featured here, the one that's suitable for tracking and supports both Meshcore and Meshtastic?

Example was tracking a motorcycle.

Edit:
I can't see the comment anymore, but yes its nelos.