• Meshtastic’s off‑grid radio protocol is gaining traction in cities, disasters, and outdoor adventures. • GreatScott! repurposed Meshtastic to link a garden shed beyond Wi‑Fi range. • The shed alarm uses an LED emitter‑detector pair and a 12V infrared trigger. • A Heltec ESP32 LoRa module publishes alarm messages to the Meshtastic channel. • Integration with Home Assistant required pin configuration and switching to RadioLib/MQTT. • After setup, the alarm reliably alerts the homeowner via Home Assistant.

Article Summaries:

  • Meshtastic, an off‑grid long‑range LoRa text‑messaging protocol, has seen a surge in users for city mesh networks, disaster response, and outdoor groups. In a recent project, hobbyist GreatScott! used the protocol to connect a garden shed too far for Wi‑Fi. He installed an infrared beam alarm that triggers a Heltec ESP32 LoRa module to publish a message via Meshtastic, which is then forwarded to a Home Assistant server over MQTT. After configuring the remote module’s pin and switching to RadioLib, the alarm system became operational. The article notes growing community interest in expanding Meshtastic’s use beyond simple messaging.

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