I've been spending time researching, building, and testing different resilient and mesh type networks and hardware. I started playing with #Meshtastic but keep getting pulled towards #Reticulum network and #RNodes. Meshtastic has the marketing, ease of entry, and hardware support. In actual execution it suffers the same downsides as FMRS radios. Reticulum is something much more. A complete encryption first network stack capable of leveraging the best path whether that's across the internet, across ISM band or other radio links or both. The ability to cache messages in the network until a node becomes available again, and no arbitrary three hop limit is a plus. Being able to text with someone out of eyesight through the radio and also with someone on the other side of the globe at the same time is very interesting. What it lacks is the fit, polish, marketing, and momentum of Meshtastic. In every other way, I find it to be superior. Oh, you can also send images, voice messages and files over Reticulum as well. Here is my first Reticulum node running Meshchat on a Raspberry Pi connected to a RAK flashed with RNode all powered with PoE. I'm building a few of these to start building out a local/regional network over time.
