Members Only Explanation

Meshtastic (Demo Project): An Intelligent Mesh of LoRa Radios

LoRa modules offer great range, low power use, and secure data encryption — but they lacked solid mesh networking support. That changed with Meshtastic, an open-source platform that enables reliable, low-cost mesh networks using LoRa. It fills a key gap and opens new possibilities for decentralized communication.

Despite their scalability, long-range, low-power consumption and security with data encryption, LoRa modules were not very suitable for mesh networking. That was before the arrival of Meshtastic, an open-source platform that filled this gap. Meshtastic allows a very effective mesh network to be created with LoRa modules, and most importantly, at low cost!

Long Range (LoRa) Radios

Ever since Long Range (LoRa) radios hit the market, lots of IoT devices are appearing in the market now and then. Besides LoRa, there is one more standard which is already occupying the market segment with various applications, and that is ZigBee. Although ZigBee devices are substantially costly, still they are in use due to their exceptionally easy meshing capability. ZigBee radios can be placed in mesh configurations, where every ZigBee will be connected as a node with each other (Figure 1), such that if one or more nodes fail, the network will still be available.