This page is meant for announcements, top level info and links to other resources relating to Meshcore, a “mesh network for the rest of us”.
What is Meshcore?
Meshcore is an open source, freely available and free to distribute software/firmware system allowing cheap hardware to create and maintain ad hoc short and long range mesh communication networks supporting text and IOT communication on top of Semtech LoRa (“Long Range”) radio chips. Meshcore networks can be up and available even when everything else is down. It has no dependence on the internet, cell networks, or satellites and is so low power that grid dependence is optional. The backbone can be managed without dependence on WiFi or Bluetooth. Many related hardware designs are also open source apart from the radio, amplifier, MPU and miscellaneous items like antennas and voltage regulators. To mention just one application, had this type of network been deployed in western North Carolina before Helene arrived the pain and suffering during the immediate aftermath might have been significantly reduced. Finally, its relevance to IOT solutions that do not have corporate strings attached offers reason to believe personal systems with long lifespans (e.g. insulation from backwards incompatible “improvements” and surprise end of lives) are feasible without onerous effort.
Since its creation by two guys in Australia and New Zealand respectively in late 2024 deployment of Meshcore nodes has been explosively fast. There are at least 20,000 repeaters (routers) in the US and 26,000 outside the US as this is being written, with an unknown but large number of “client” nodes using the repeaters.
Installfest, Tutorial, and other Event Schedules (area events: may not be associated with TriEmbed)
Coming soon!
Information Links
All are text sources unless labeled with “(video)”.
The WikiPedia entry, including contrasts with Meshtastic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeshCore
The Meshcore Project Website — The official site for downloads, documentation and related source links: https://meshcore.io
Official site documentation including quick start guides: https://docs.meshcore.io/
The GitHub repositories: https://github.com/meshcore-dev
RDUMesh official web site for an organization promoting Meshcore in the greater RDU area (counties Wake, Durham, Orange, and Chatham, plus Edgecombe, Franklin, Granville, Harnett, Johnston, Lee, Nash, Person, Vance, Warren, Wayne, and Wilson): https://rdumesh.org
Links to gear: https://nodakmesh.org/meshcore/devices
Notice about “meshcore.co.uk” and domain owner Andy Kirby (YouTube @andykirby)
This parties involved with promotion of Meshcore “went rogue” and decided to try to get rich quick. The Meshcore founders (authors of the firmware and application code and key documentation) and supporters of the founders are fighting a trademark dispute. They are also making clear the unaligned motivations involved with the above web site and YouTube videos and traffic from supporters of that “faction”. Andy created a lot of first rate information and as of this writing he has a great many followers. At the same time people deserve to know about this controversy.
Inconvenient Truths
(This should probably be buried some place as buzz kills are discouraged these days)
In the US Meshcore is confined to the 900Mhz ISM radio band and reliable propagation at this frequency is significantly impeded by obstacles. One category of obstacle is the tree, a prominent feature of just about any part of our outdoors here in North Carolina. Trees with leaves, most especially wet leaves, make long distance communication a major challenge when nodes cannot be placed well above ground to achieve genuine or “close enough” line of sight connections with others. The one and only solution to this problem is having a density of nodes such that folks don’t have to go to great lengths with their placement and maintenance. Many people cannot climb onto their roofs or string things up in trees for a great many reasons. Installing and maintaining solar powered, storm resistant repeaters on tall structures must be a priority.
A second problem that is less serious but destined to become a limiting factor akin to the “it’s an emergency: why won’t my cell phone call go through?” issue is the capacity of the ISM band used by Meshcore. Although the band is wide enough to support about 400 communication “channels” suitable for Meshcore meshes the number of users is growing fast. It makes sense to expect future enhancements of Meshcore or its successor architecture to have more adaptation skills to cope with long term growth, but ultimately bandwidth is a finite resource. Greatly increasing the number and span of ISM bands is a better solution to go with smarter “frequency hopping”. A hierarchy of low and high frequency band usage to allow for long haul repeaters should also be on this wish list.
This page last updated August 27, 2026