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BYOMesh – New LoRa mesh radio offers 100x the bandwidth
- Singletail 5mo agoWith that frequency range, I really hope the people using it have radio licenses.
- subscribed 5mo agoFor 2.4GHz?
- codensolder 5mo agoSending photos on meshtastic
- myself248 5mo agoEvery day, we get closer to reinventing Ricochet, 27 years later...
- stavros 5mo agoWhat does an Internet communication app that have to do with a mesh radio protocol?
- petra303 5mo agoRicochet was a mesh internet provider.
- myself248 5mo agoMetricom Ricochet used dual-band radios, operating in 900MHz and 2.4GHz, to form a routable mesh that delivered internet access and other services, in 1999.
- stavros 5mo agoAh, thanks, I didn't find any reference to that from a search (found a messaging app).
- hedgehog 5mo agoThey used repeaters on street lights as part of the infrastructure, and even after the company went belly up people were able to use the repeaters for private networks. Pretty slick for the mid 90s.
- lormayna 5mo agoPropagation (FSPL) is a lot better at 868/915 Mhz than 2.4Ghz. What is the advantage to have a "super BLE", that can propagate for few hundred meters?
- swaits 5mo agoNot much. While this is technically LoRa on 2.4GHz (which is not new), most people will associate LoRa with significantly longer range and LoRa 2.4 can do.
- yborg 5mo agoCue xkcd on standards. I've been interested in mesh radio, and I keep hoping that a winner will emerge. Probably won't until a large commercial vendor gets interested and picks one.
- janandonly 5mo agoHow does this compare to Meshtastic, MeshCore and Bitchat?
- nunobrito 5mo agoDoesn't. That is like comparing the network connection with apps. Network doesn't usually care much about the apps running on top of it.
- WD-42 5mo agoCapping off a pretty wild week for Meshcore: https://www.pedaldrivenprogramming.com/2026/05/meshcore-is-having-a-week/ https://www.pedaldrivenprogramming.com/2026/05/meshcore-is-h...
- api 5mo agoTBH Meshtastic's code isn't great either. It's neat to play with but not robust.
- syntaxing 5mo agoIt sucks how everything feels like a toy. I think meshtastic is the closest thing to a “product”. They made a bunch of bad architectural decisions that are haunting them now like how nodes broadcast its info.
- api 5mo agoIt doesn't surprise me. This is a deep networking problem and very few CS people know anything about networking or how to design clean, fast, low-overhead network protocols and systems. If IP were designed today the packets would have 500+ bytes of plain text JSON as headers and the spec would support hundreds of extensions.
- jtchang 5mo agoCorrect me if I am wrong but I thought the primary appeal of LoRa was range? Also isn't the primary factor in making long range radio go through things is the frequency? So 2.4ghz is the same frequency as consumer wifi right and thus would propagate about the same right? It doesn't seem like this would be that useful except that the protocol is LoRa so you can have higher bandwidth between two devices if they happen to be close enough together.
- jimnotgym 5mo ago...or have line of sight at least. But yes higher frequencies have a bigger issue with this. A great mesh network for people who live on hill tops
- mikeweiss 5mo agoLoRa would go much farther than Wifi on 2.4ghz. Lora uses Chirp Spread Spectrum (CSS) modulation while wifi uses OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing). The first being designed for extreme range while the latter for bandwidth. At 2.4ghz you could probably get LoRa connections up to 6 miles with the right antenna height.
- lormayna 5mo ago6 miles seems a very optimistic estimation: 2.4Ghz propagation is very reduced by obstacles like buildings or trees and at that frequency the atmospheric water (fog, rain, humidity) have a big impact on propagation. And you need also to consider that 2.4Ghz is a very polluted band, then the noise floor is significatevly higher than in the 865/915 Mhz. Moreover at 2.4Ghz the Fresnel window is smaller and the risk of multipath fading is higher.
- sepisoad 5mo agonice to not see some non-ai titles
- mikeweiss 5mo agoYou mean content?
- zamadatix 5mo agoIt's either AI content or people talking about how it's not AI content but the one thing that's for certain - the comments will end up being about AI.
- vladimirzaytsev 5mo agoIt's clearly AI. I’m struggling to see the value here. At $50, this seems hard to justify given the availability of cheaper, well-supported options like MuziWorks Duo, Ebyte, and other newer LR1121/LR2021-based designs. Those chips offer both 2.4 GHz and sub-GHz support in a single modern package, often at roughly half the price, which makes the SX1281 feel fairly outdated.
- varispeed 5mo ago100x of what? As someone not too familiar with LoRa, what is the significance and how this could be used? Say I start the node and then what?
- sandos 5mo ago100x regular LoRa maybe? Iow 100s of kbps per second. Yes, LoRa can go veeery low in bandwith.
- syntaxing 5mo agoI know it’s all open source and I’m not paying for anything so I cant be choosy. But after playing with a bunch of Lora peer to peer chat systems. All I wish is a chat service that uses haloW. Since it uses wifi backend, regular wifi should work as well.
- jschveibinz 5mo agoSeems like this would support institutional/campus environments or changing environments where the sensors at the edge are sending higher bandwidth ultimately back to an Internet node using LoRA mesh--instead of directional WiFi? I'm trying to envision the application of a mesh like this. These could be examples? - interconnected nodes need to share data (like images) - interconnected nodes are acting as a collective array of sensors (eg. geolocation) - interconnected mesh nodes provide redundant pathways back to the central node - interconnected mesh nodes provide spatial diversity in case of interference or jamming - nodes are mobile (eg. drone or vehicle) and mesh provides alternative connectivity based on node location and RF attenuation (also provides longer range with mesh connectivity)
- syntaxing 5mo agoI’m guessing it’s just haloW without the licensing requirements.
- refulgentis 5mo agoGonna reply here, but this isn't about you or this post: HN has a lot of us that have ~0 idea what you'd use this for, even when we steelman, all we can do is vaguely handwave about easier to setup wireless internet on a vast compound we own. Would be really cool if someone could hop in and just give a couple one off examples, i guess? Only other one handwave I can think of is IOT x assembly line stuff for businesses, but I'm real curious why individuals are so into it -- or maybe they're not, and that's why the codebase quality is so poor? Idk.
- chocrates 5mo agoAssuming you mean mesh in general: Meshtastic like projects - emergency communication - low power data transfer for sensors - low data rate data transfer for mobile groups. Air softers use it to transmit information to each other while playing. HaLow: - "high" data rate over shorter range, though much higher range than 2.4 wifi - data sharing between mobile groups like above, but high enough bandwidth for low quality video - large area wifi deployments
- AlphaWeaver 5mo agoThe "100x bandwidth" claim needs to be substantiated. There are some significant regulatory issues with the current popular mesh network protocols in the USA, namely that neither MeshCore or Meshtastic are compliant with the actual FCC regulations. 100x bandwidth because you're breaking the rules isn't the same as 100x bandwidth legally. Here is the issue discussing this in the MeshCore repository: https://github.com/meshcore-dev/MeshCore/issues/945 https://github.com/meshcore-dev/MeshCore/issues/945
- wtallis 5mo agoThe issue you linked to is about MeshCore using channels that are too narrow. A mesh system claiming to offer 100x bandwidth is probably not violating regulations in that particular way.
- nunobrito 5mo agoThere are more rules being broken. For example, overusing the frequency which effectively prevents others users from sending messages. In the end, won't be used.
- nubinetwork 5mo agoIn the EU, the duty cycle limit is like 10% per hour. North America doesn't have that restriction...
- slow_typist 5mo agoNot on the 2.4 GHz band though
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- nubinetwork 5mo agoOur local discord questions the use of 2.4ghz for longer than 50 feet, between WiFi and Bluetooth, microwaves, and millions of "2.4 GHz (nonspec) wireless devices", the spectrum is just trashed.
- beambot 5mo agoSounds like a solution to a problem already solved by DECT NR+ -- a 5G technology that is 'subscription free'.
- consumer451 5mo agoI didn't know about this. Neato. Links for the lazy: https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Wireless/DECT-NR https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Wireless/DECT-NR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DECT-2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DECT-2020
- swaits 5mo agoDECT is definitely neat. But it’s significantly different than LoRa. At the lowest/slowest modulation you might get single digit kilometers out of it. Doesn’t change my excitement about it a bit though. Eager to get this onto my workbench!
- the__alchemist 5mo agoHow are they increasing the bandwidth? It's a hardware limitation of the radios. Even if you run the lowest spread factor (SF) and highest bandwidth setting on the radio, it's still not great. And the radio buffer is 255 bytes. I'm also curious why they're starting a new project with the SX1276 instead of SX1262.
- thombles 5mo agoIs the poster maybe confusing bandwidth (range of frequencies over which a single board can work) with bandwidth (data transfer speeds in bits per second)?
- igorramazanov 5mo agoThat stuff is good for drone warfare, mesh networks already been used in Ukraine E.g. drones geographically organize themselves into a chain with each of them serving as a mesh-network node, then each of them, including the tip of a chain, can be controlled by operators, and the whole setup is a closed network which works without requiring Internet access
- po1nt 5mo agoThe bandwidth of LoRa networks is really low. Anything beyond a environment sensors is stretching the design, especially on mesh networks. Meshing two digit number of drones on a military grade reliability is a real uphill battle with chirp based protocols, as the high ToA reaches congestion fast.
- ninjagoo 5mo ago> That stuff is good for drone warfare > each of them serving as a mesh-network node might have worked for a bit in the past, but is easily disrupted by jammers, and forced a switch to fiber-optic in-theater. People have learned from that and don't bother with radio anymore, even in new theaters.
- amelius 5mo agoHow about spread spectrum techniques?
- wiml 5mo agoLoRA is a spread spectrum chirp modulation already.
- esseph 5mo agoNot everything is fiber optic. Fiber optic tethers limit range and target conditions. You can't go into a forest or even an urban canyon, you basically need to run the drone along roads and fields. And you have to drag it with you, which reduces what you can carry. The fiber itself is very light weight and has a habit of getting sucked up into the props on quadcopters. There's a lot of frequency hopping and chirp systems being used now, with a mix between analog radios mostly for FPV and digital radios or Starlink for larger ISR drones or larger gliders. Digital still gets used a lot for FPV because of how readily available it is, but good drone FPV pilots want the lower latency of analog and will take it if they can get it.
- itrunsdoomguy 5mo agoDoes it run Doom?
- tminuslabs 5mo agoWhat is the max distance between nodes in the mesh
- subscribed 5mo agoHow long is the piece of the string?
- jeffhwang 5mo agoDid anyone else think of LoRA [0] at first? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRA_(machine_learning) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRA_(machine_learning)
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- vladimirzaytsev 5mo agoSounds like bs. Why would someone pay $50 for almost 10 years old hardware when there are plenty of well-supported and cheaper options like MuziWorks Duo / Ebyte / etc with newer LR1121 or LR2021 which combine both 2.4G and SubG bands in single and modern chip at 1/2 of the cost less? SX1281 and SX1281 are relics.
- vladimirzaytsev 5mo agoNvm, looks like AI scam.
- thenthenthen 5mo agoThere is also a Long Rage (low data rate) function built into the ESP32, claiming 1KM line of sight, see: https://www.hackster.io/news/long-range-wifi-for-the-esp32-9429ab89f450 https://www.hackster.io/news/long-range-wifi-for-the-esp32-9...
- K0balt 5mo agoIs the design for this open source? I’m not an rf guy so it would be really handy to be able to reuse some parts of this in my sensor network on our farm. I can do the digital and sensor part all day, but I respect the skill of rf engineering in getting decent performance out of tiny pcbs.
- croemer 5mo agoThis should be a "Show HN:" given it's author submitted and quite promotion heavy. AFAICT, this just combined two chips on a board. And the 100x bandwidth is due to using a higher frequency chip. Nothing revolutionary.
- cieulyyy 5mo ago[dead]
- stevefan1999 5mo agoI think I can give it a pretty nice use: distributed ring signature over long distances. We can distribute people over different regions for redundancy and form long distance encryption channel to deliver a signature of some data, and use it to make consensus with enough provenance. Kind of like e-voting but with stronger assumptions. By using a long distance communication device this eliminates the proximity strike problem. This could easily be extended to say like distributing the voting rights to different generals at different regions, and given that the device is genuine and not modified, can be a hardware voting key to say like launch the nuke in secrecy or not. Whether adversarials can use the radio signals that it emits to triangulate you and thus track you is another story, though.
- monssooon 5mo agoThese technologies may not be illegal atm but as soon as the eu gets around to it they probably will be. These things circumvent all their control!?!
- KaiserPro 5mo ago> These things circumvent all their control I mean 2.4gig is unlicensed as is 433 and 939 in the EU, so unless its not conforming with regs, no it wont be.
- RenThraysk 5mo agoIf could manage and firmware upgrade it over the 2.4GHz.
- dsign 5mo agoIs that an Espressif logo in the photo? I'm seriously impressed with their products. To me, they are like the Toyota of microcontrollers, specially after having to throw in the trash an Arduino Giga that never worked and not only was expensive on itself but also required me to purchase those dicey JTAG devices with an impossible to find plug and a heavy authenticity problem. A bit in dismay, I need to admit this is another "Chinese make'em better".
- YorkiRima 5mo ago[dead]