Guide · LoRa mesh
Meshtastic: a LoRa mesh with no towers, no SIMs and no monthly bill.
Meshtastic lets a handful of cheap radios talk to each other over kilometres with no towers, no SIM cards and no monthly bill, as long as you only need to send small amounts of data. It is a LoRa mesh built for text, location and a trickle of sensor readings, and this page is the honest version of what it does well and where it falls over.
Last reviewed: 21 July 2026 · by Alien IT Solutions
What Meshtastic is
Tiny ESP32 LoRa boards (Heltec, RAK and similar) running open-source firmware. Each node relays for the others, so a message hops across the mesh from one device to the next until it reaches where it is going. No base station, no internet, no infrastructure. Switch a few on and they find each other.
That is the whole difference from a fixed wireless link. There is no dish to aim and no pole to climb: the network is the radios themselves, and it heals around a node that drops out. The trade for that freedom is bandwidth, which is where most people set their expectations wrong.
What it is genuinely good for
Small messages that need to cross ground with no coverage. Three jobs it does well:
Text messages
Between people out of mobile range: farms, ranges, fire trails, remote worksites. A few words, delivered.
Location sharing
See where each node, a person or a vehicle, sits on a map without any phone signal at all.
Sensor telemetry
Temperature, tank level, a gate state: a few numbers reported every so often.
Range is kilometres with clear line of sight. Hills and thick bush cut it down hard, which is exactly what the mesh relaying is for: put a node on a high point and you bridge the gap. If a single high site would serve you better than a swarm of relays, that is masts and relays territory instead.
What it is useless for
Anything bandwidth-heavy. LoRa is a trickle, not a pipe: no web browsing, no photos, no voice, no video, no live streaming. If you need more than short text and small numbers, it is the wrong tool and no amount of tweaking changes that.
When the job is real throughput between two fixed points, a camera feed, a building-to-building network, internet out to a shed, you want a proper aimed link, not a mesh. That is a point-to-point link, and it is a different page for a different problem.
The real battery numbers
This is where people get caught out. A node running flat out, radio awake and transmitting regularly, draws around 100mA. On a 3000mAh battery the sum is blunt:
3000mAh divided by 100mA is about 30 hours. Call it roughly a day of full-power operation. That is it.
If you want it to last, power management is not optional. Four levers do the work:
Let it sleep. Sleep between transmissions instead of listening constantly. This is the biggest single saving.
Send less often. Report every few minutes rather than every few seconds. Match the interval to how fast you actually need the reading.
Turn transmit power down on short hops. Full power into a node 200 metres away is wasted battery.
Add a small solar panel for anything permanent, so the cell tops up faster than the node drains it. Sizing that panel and battery is its own job: see off-grid and solar links.
Done right, a sensor node can run for weeks. Left on full power, you are charging it again tomorrow.
What you need to get started
1. Two or more AU915 boards
Two or more supported LoRa boards, and make sure they are the AU915 (915MHz) version for Australia. Check the frequency printed on the box before you buy: a US915 or EU868 board will not talk to your AU915 mesh.
2. Power for each node
Batteries (18650 cells or a LiPo pack), plus a solar top-up for anything left outside long term.
3. The Meshtastic app
The official Meshtastic app on your phone to configure nodes and send messages. It is an open-source project (found at meshtastic.org); stick to the official app so your firmware and settings stay in step.
4. A high spot for one node
Put at least one node up high if you want to stretch the range. One well-placed relay on a ridge or a shed roof does more than any setting you can change.
The short version
Meshtastic is a no-infrastructure LoRa mesh: brilliant for text, location and small sensor readings over kilometres, useless for anything heavier. Budget the power honestly. Around 100mA on a 3000mAh cell is only about a day flat out, so sleep it, send less often, and add solar for anything permanent. Buy the AU915 (915MHz) hardware here, and lift one node up high to reach further.
General guidance only. Check current hardware, firmware and the AU915 frequency rules before you build.
Who works this out for you
Long Range WiFi is a service of Alien IT Solutions, 18 years of networks and wireless in places without a power point in sight. LoRa gear gets configured and range-tested on the bench before it goes up the hill; for the wider picture, start with the long-range wireless guide.
Need reach where there is no coverage?
Tell us what you need to send and how far it has to go. We will tell you honestly whether a LoRa mesh fits or whether a fixed link is the better answer, and set it up either way.
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