Comment on This Tiny Radio Lets Me Send Texts Without Wi-Fi or Cell Service

• deafboy@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Ever since I switched to lemmy, I constantly stumble upon people trying to guilt other people for their hobbies. That’s pretty unhealthy.

  Whoever reads this, don’t feel guilty living your life. Spend time on whatever you’re passionate about. Build new things, even if they do not have a rational use case at the moment. They might play an important role in your future.

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  • MangoCats@feddit.it ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    WiFi goes down and people sometimes NEED to communicate instead of streaming Netflix.

    This is just an alternate channel, if Eheran doesn’t have the imagination to understand how low bandwidth can still be extremely valuable, as compared to, say, screaming at the top of your lungs to attempt to be heard 5 miles away, then… I’m not really interested in what they think.

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    • captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      “WiFi goes down”

      Or more to the point, the ISP fails. A Wi-Fi router isn’t that much more difficult to power than a meshtastic node, but my old ISP, I don’t think they even bothered to install UPSes, if the power was out, so was the internet. I could keep my Wi-Fi up indefinitely, but it’s basically useless outside my house.

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      • MangoCats@feddit.it ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Yeah, whenever I tell the kids “WiFi is down” what that really means is “Comcast has killed our link, again.”

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    • Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      They’re a godsend for camping, and would be legendary in a disaster event.

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      • MangoCats@feddit.it ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Low power requirements, battery + solar power source… this isn’t science fiction anymore.

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  • Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    People are just discussing the pros and cons of technology in the Technology comm. Chill out.

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• artyom@piefed.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Some people already are

  <https://map.nycmesh.net/>

  But the point of LoRa is in the name, long range. Wifi barely reaches outside my house. Also a WiFi mesh is dependent on a variety of complicated and proprietary networks and systems while meshtastic is entirely independent.

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  • captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Isn’t LoRa proprietary? Like, Meshtastic is open source, but something about the radio itself is proprietary tech?

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    • artyom@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      No.

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      • captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Yes. LoRa (from “long range”, sometimes abbreviated as “LR”) is a physical proprietary radio communication technique.[2] It is based on spread spectrum modulation techniques derived from chirp spread spectrum (CSS) technology.[3] It was developed by Cycleo, a company of Grenoble, France, and patented in 2014.

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• shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  You can have one or the other. If you choose high bandwidth, you’re going to get very short distance because you can’t do serious error correction, etc. If you choose long range, you’re going to get low bandwidth because you need to include error correction, etc. In the transmissions.

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• ilovepiracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  In trying times you’re missing the big picture. If they were more commonplace, you’d have a decentralised communication network that can’t be shut down by the government.

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  • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    And then they make it illegal to protect the terrorists

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• 0x0@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  pretty much non-existing use case.

  …for you.

  I can see a use-case where a low-powered off-grid communication device can be useful.

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  • notgold@aussie.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    We are in talks to build one for a local power utility. These are cheaper for nice-to-have sensors that aren’t critical. Most electricity meters in Victoria use a mesh network provided through silverspring devices to collect usage readings.

    I’ve also heard about a rural water utility using a mesh network to connect water meters together to reduce the number of times an onsite reading is required.

    Telcos are already trying to compete with mesh networks by providing low bandwidth LTE-M services that are lower cost for utilities. Nokia are pushing 450connect, 450 alliance, etc as more competitors also.

    There are plenty of use cases for low bandwidth systems and services. Isolated network is great when the telcos have pages too.

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