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Why Update? Meshtastic releases updates frequently, delivering bug fixes, new features, and performance improvements. For best compatibility with other nodes on the mesh, keep nodes on the current major version (2.x) and within a few minor releases of the late...

Update Frequency MeshCore releases firmware periodically. Major releases introduce new features and architecture improvements; point releases fix bugs. Check the changelog at github.com/meshcore-dev/MeshCore/releases before updating to understand what has chan...

How Meshtastic Encryption Works Each Meshtastic channel is encrypted with AES-CTR (counter mode), keyed by the channel pre-shared key (PSK). The key length depends on the PSK: the default public key (AQ==) yields AES-128, while a generated 32-byte PSK yields A...

Position Privacy By default, Meshtastic nodes broadcast GPS coordinates to the entire channel at regular intervals. Your approximate location is visible to all channel participants. If your node is on the Default public channel and your node (or a node that he...

Why Model Before Deploying Walking a coverage area with a radio after installing a repeater is valuable ground-truth - but it is expensive if the site turns out to be wrong. Free online tools let you model RF line-of-sight and rough coverage before committing ...

Why Field Test? Even the best RF prediction tools are only as good as their terrain models. Buildings, vegetation, and local obstructions can significantly degrade predicted coverage. Field testing confirms what the models predict - and reveals the surprises t...

LoRa Channel Capacity LoRa is a low-data-rate technology. Unlike Wi-Fi, the RF channel is shared by all nodes simultaneously using a CSMA-like approach combined with Meshtastic's managed flooding mesh mechanism (every node rebroadcasts packets that still have ...

Board Comparison Table The table below covers the most widely deployed boards for LoRa mesh networking as of 2025 - 2026, across both Meshtastic and MeshCore platforms. All TX power figures are nominal maximum; actual radiated power depends on antenna gain and...

Board Selection by Use Case Use this guide to narrow down board options based on your deployment scenario. Every use case has a different set of priorities - power consumption, form factor, display needs, and software support all vary. Start with your primary ...

MeshCore Routing Architecture MeshCore uses a hybrid flood-then-direct routing scheme. Unlike a route-first protocol, MeshCore floods the first actual message to a destination; the path is recorded during that flood and returned to the sender, who then uses i...

This page covers MeshCore's packet encryption as verified from docs/packet_format.md, docs/payloads.md, and src/Utils.cpp in the official MeshCore repository. Encryption at the Packet Level Encrypted payload types (text, group, request/response) use AES-128 i...

MeshCore Network Topology Best Practices Backbone vs. Client Layer A well-designed MeshCore network is organized into two distinct layers: Backbone layer: dedicated repeaters placed on elevated sites with clear line-of-sight between them. These form the rou...

This page provides a technical comparison between MeshCore and Meshtastic - the two most widely deployed open-source LoRa mesh networking platforms. Both run on similar hardware and serve similar goals, but make very different design choices. Feature Compariso...