So, I’m looking into getting commercially available meshtastic nodes. Buying a bulk set of like 5 of them, and handing them out as birthday presents to my friends to help adoption in the area. A few of them have expressed interest in what I’ve been experimenting with, but don’t want (or can’t afford) to invest themselves.

What would be the most cost effective device to invest in?

My basic requirements are going to be

  • Screen mandatory (these are not all techy people, they need to see that it’s on and doing something)
  • GPS would be nice, but probably not worth the device cost
  • Bluetooth only- I assume everyone will only be using these with the Android app
  • Full housing, battery, antenna provided (no setup)

My top 3 so far are the

  1. ThinkNode M1 ($53)
  2. Lilygo TTGO T-Echo ($65)
  3. RAK WisMesh Pocket ($84)

I’m leaning towards the ThinkNode for price and features alone, but I like the form factor and E-ink display of the Lilygo more.

  • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
    0·
    1 day ago

    If you’re going to go as high as 84, you might consider the Heltec MeshPocket 10,000 mAh for like $11 more. That even gives them a power bank for their phone, and if they just use all that power for the meshtastic node, it lasts weeks on a charge. I have about 15 nodes in my area and my single charge lasted 50 days. I assume meshes that were larger, though, wouldn’t last quite as long, but they’d still last an incredibly long time.

    Another option is the seeed Wio Tracker L1 Pro which is similar to the ThinkNode M1 and while I don’t personally have one, I’ve heard lots of good things about it. And the people I talk to that have one seem to really like it.