@Mark, just note that your goTenna Mesh signal will be greatly attenuated inside a metal box (i.e. your truck). See if you can find another place to leave it (hiding it in a tree is quite useful and you get more altitude too = better propagation) 
1 Like
Thanks for the tip. I will keep that in mind.
1 Like
I donât think you would need to connect the GoTenna Mesh to the internet for that. You could use the already existing imeshyou.com1 database as a layer in the GoTenna application for the offline Maps. Leveraging the already existing GPS in the phones themselves you would see the data.
My gotenna hasnât arrived yet, so I canât try this out, but is there a feature in the app that will allow us to see the locations of gotenna devices around us (or at least see statistics about how many gotennas are around and how far away they are). If not, are you guys working on developing this feature? Also, do you have a place where we can vote on/submit features we would like to see (other than writing about them in the forums, of course)?
3 Likes
Hi @FoI6euqC.
The goTenna app does not show acitve devices near your location - we feel this would raise serious privacy concerns. Can you tell us more about how you will use this feature?
This forum is currently the best place for you to share feedback on new features.
not seeing the delete option. i added a node & it didnât show up. tried it 2 more times with no luck. so i exited & reopened the url & now there are 3 node in the same place.
1 Like
can more than one phone be paired with one mesh unit? was thinking of using 1 mesh at my burningman camp for others to connect & also act as a stationary node. but i already paired it with my wifeâs phone. do i have to unpair her phone BEFORE i take it on a trip so that i can pair it with others or will it be locked to her phone once i get to my destination?
You can unpair/re-pair goTenna Mesh to any phone. From the side menu in the goTenna app, click on âUnpair goTennaâ and follow instructions.
Yes you can do this. Just leave the device ON.
Make sure the previously paired phone is no longer in Bluetooth range with this unit.
2 Likes
I donât really care about the exact locations of other gotenna users - I think it would be useful to see some simple stats in the app, such as how many gotennas are in range, maybe average distance or time for recent message transmissions, etc. Iâm sure youâre are storing some cool stats on the backend to make all this work. Currently, all we get is battery percentage, but I think it would be interesting to have access to some of the other stats, even if theyâre aggregated or averaged, in some way.
5 Likes
@FoI6euqC Currently we donât store anything at all on the back-end, but we do want to move toward a way we can integrate the off-grid app/hardware goTenna Mesh experience with the online imeshyou.com experience. We agree with you that itâll be essential to making imeshyou.com more useful and definitely also around building community and utility around this people-powered mesh network.
We are currently in process of interviewing people for an full-stack engineering position that will be able to work on imeshyou.com (and app/hardware integrations) full-time. (The functionality weâve built so far has been sort of a side-project but we agree thereâs a lot of potential to harness here so we want to staff it with a full-time development resources.)
Regarding some of the ideas youâve shared here, we definitely want a way for people to opt-in to sharing anonymized data of the kind you discussed here on imeshyou.com. Perhaps you could speak a little more in-depth on some of your ideas and use-cases?
4 Likes
Hi, I created by mistake several instances of a stationary node, they did not appear on map so I created several times. I exit and re-started map app and saw the nodes!! a bunch of them. How can I delete the duplicate ones?
Hi @Klimber, we pushed out an update that allows you to delete nodes tied to your account.
Log into your imeshyou account.
Click on âMy Accountâ at the top right hand corner.
Click on My Nodes
Click on the Node you wish to delete. Hit delete and follow instructions.
1 Like
Great news! It works!!
OTOH, I tried the Edit button and it does not appear to work, so to Edit I change the info and Save the node.
Thanks!!
Feature request - Put a âSend a messageâ button on each node pop-up window on the map. That opens a small window to send a message (if you are a logged in user) and goes to that users inbox and email. This way, I can send messages to node owners before I travel to an area to ask if they actually have a relay turned on that would be useful, as most pins on the map I assume now are âpotential nodesâ, not actual operating devices.
Also add the ability to check-in and comment on each node, so I can make a comment ânot onlineâ or âworks great up to 1 mileâ etc.
Basically, add on all the features that Plugshare.com has for their crowd-sourced map of charging stations. They also have locations that are hidden from the public map (residential chargers) that show for logged in users only, to help protect addresses from the public web.
8 Likes
@dbfish great idea. Thank you for sharing.
We are planning to improve & add features to imeshyou in the coming months. This feedback is much appreciated.
3 Likes
Being able to leave comments that you used a node or relayed through a node. In a rural areas its hard to know whats happening with a DMR [meshie]
4 Likes
What format is the imeshyou node store? The example below uses a folder/file format, with each file representing each node on the map.
Using code from OwnCloud (an open-source server-client sync program), using individual files for each node would allow a fairly easy relay sync between phones, the internet, and mesh nets. When a phone is online, it will sync a pair of folders containing all the files of the nodes found on imeshyou. One folder would have stationary nodes, the other would have the localized user nodes. By default, the app only syncs stationary nodes, but this can be changed by user preference to sync all or donât perform syncing. As a bonus option, have these preferences separate for internet sync and mesh sync.
How this works is that the app performs the initial sync over the internet if it can. If not, it will use other mesh users if connected to a mesh. Per the SDK specs, if each node file can be kept under 236 bytes, phones can sync at a rate of 5 nodes per minute over the mesh between phones. If a phone has connectivity to both a mesh and the internet, it will perform several syncs:
- Sync with mesh so the phone is up to date with the mesh itâs connected to.
- Sync with internet to push any updates from the mesh and download updates from the internet.
- Sync again with mesh, pushing any changes from internet out to mesh.
To avoid multiple phones from doing an internet sync on each mesh, have those phones with internet connectivity announce over the mesh somehow that it will do internet sync and that all other phones on the mesh, regardless of internet connectivity, only sync with the mesh. First to announce does the sync, and a sync happens at every 10 minute interval on the clock (8:10, 8:20, 8:30, etc.).
Thereâs probably better solutions out there, but this should work without causing conflicts and can adopt an existing open-source system (ownCloud). Each node file would include pin coordinates, node ID, and any other publicly available info. There shouldnât be any privacy concerns with syncing plain text files, since the information in them is public knowledge anyway.
Just a thought.
2 Likes
@MrTSolar quite a promising idea.
Node data for imeshyou is currently stored in a simple Mongo DB.
A file based storage system may be an overkill for the sync we wish to perform b/w imeshyou online & the phone app. Node data is pretty well structured and hence fits nicely into databases.
The way I have been thinking about this is that phone app sync with imeshyou db when connected to the internet. When offline, from the app, you can attempt to sync with other Mesh users that are within Mesh range.Your app will sync with another userâs app that has the latest download from imeshyou online.
The assumption here is that the user will have the greatest value for node data near him/her. This will limit the amount of data that needs to be syncâd.
1 Like
Store the modification date of each node in the database. Youâll have the issue of multiple users with different versions of the downloaded data based on when they were last online. That way when comparing offline versions of the data, the app can ask each new connected mesh user for any data newer than the latest modification date they have. Default to auto sync nodes within say 50 miles to limit sync data. I would imagine you would only need a few digits of lat/long for 50 meter accuracy to save bit counts when syncing.
I would also suggest, if your programmers are up for the challenge, of adding a future feature to sync data between apps directly bluetooth to bluetooth. Much more bandwidth if phones are all in range. For example, one user has Verizon, the others are all AT&T with no service. Verizon user can sync node database, maps, whatever, and then push the data to the other gotenna app users within bluetooth range. Or only one user has wifi on the airplane and downloads new data, then meets with a group where nobody has service, and can quickly sync up with everyone using bluetooth between apps.
There is actually a mesh network bluetooth API available from these guys: https://bridgefy.me/
4 Likes
I went with the file sync because thatâs what I know. I figured individual files would sync easier than a single database file (in-case of connection drops, conflicts between versions on meshes and the internet), though it looks like Mongo could split the difference and behave like multiple files (they call them shards). Typically, a change in a database requires re-syncing the entire database file.
Either way, I figured Iâd put my idea out there so a smarter brain could run with it.
2 Likes