Considering the amount of tech and self hosting types that live in cities, it seems like it would be popular to have little mesh intranets all over the place, but I’m not aware of any.
I read about NYC Mesh a while back, and I wonder if there are other similar things already in widespread use that I just haven’t heard about.
Meshtastic is one. It requires nodes you connect your self to with Bluetooth. Your mobile is the UI then. Nodes use 868Mhz and connect to each other in ranges between 10-20km. Building an own node costs about 70-90€. Check out https://meshmap.net/ to find one nearby.
Freifunk is another, which uses wifi only. It has entry/exit points to the internet on every node (but not required), using VPN tunnels to obscure the clients identity. Nodes can be linked to another in order to create a mesh network. I don’t know how popular this technology is outside Germany. https://freifunk.net/
Building a node can be done for under 20€ with a Heltec V3. Not the most power efficient, but not an issue if you’re running it from usb power anyway.
Also a note: the map doesn’t show all nodes, my node can see a lot more devices around me than are listed on the map. Maybe some issues with reporting or something (which is optional in the first place)
If you want a power efficient device with an enclosure, Seeed Studio make some decent stuff. I run a pair of Wio L1s (one on Meshtastic, the other on MeshCore), which cost around 40 € complete with antenna, battery, and enclosure.
Sure, more expensive than a bare V3 but more convenient for actually taking them somewhere.
How do those networks compare for you? I’ve considered both but in my area meshtastic seems to have a bigger community
I haven’t been on there a lot and due to time constraints I’m mostly just lurking. It seems that I can see more people on Tastic but Core seems to be more active in terms of messages.
Both are almost absurdly easy to set up, especially on an nRF5-based device where you can flash a firmware by just mounting the thing as an USB drive and copying a file over. You don’t really need to buy two devices to try out both unless you really want to use them simultaneously.