One of the things that surprised me quite a bit when I started experimenting with MeshCore is its range. The technology only sends small data bursts and hence can focus a lot of signal energy into the transmission, but still, I could hardly believe the ranges I got.
Concrete Floors
The first surprise was that MeshCore messages go through 7 reinforced concrete floors down to the basement. Without a repeater! At first, I thought there must be a repeater or some other way to compensate for the massive signal attenuation. However, the Companion smartphone app shows if a message was transmitted directly between two devices or if repeaters where in between. And the app kept telling me that the messages were sent directly from a device in the basement to a device at the top of the 7 floor building I tried this in. MeshCore is not intended as a protocol for home automation and control, but I guess if you have such ‘high attenuation scenarios’ at home, MeshCore integration into your home automation system might be the thing to go for.
Houses
The next surprise came when I took one of my MeshCore devices with me and walked through the streets. My other device was again at a high floor in a building, and I was pretty certain that my messages would go over a repeater pretty quickly. And again, that was not the case. Up to around 500 meters, the messages went through concrete apartment blocks like they were not there. Again, I could hardly believe it, but when I went a bit further away, repeaters were shown in the app for the message transfer. So it must be true. And I was not using any kind of high gain antennas, I was just using a credit card sized device with a built-in antenna at street level, and a 5 cm long antenna in a Walkie-Talkie casing on the other side. Incredible!
Over the Center of Cologne
And a final example is the range I can receive messages from directly. I have a few repeaters quite nearby and my devices can easily receive them. Recently, a new repeater was set up on the other side of the Center of Cologne on the opposite side of the river, about 2 km away. I am living relatively high up and my devices could receive repetitions of my messages from that Repeater as well.
At Street Level
At street level, things are a bit different. There aren’t any MeshCore repeaters in the center of Cologne yet. So while doing some walk tests there, I could not send or receive any messages. So that’s where the technology’s limits are. So yes, more repeaters are needed for the technology to work over larger distances in towns with 5-6 floor buildings. So let’s see, around 500 devices are added to MeshCore globally each day, and most of the devices in the Cologne area where added in the last 6 months. And with each additional repeater, the usefulness of the network increases. Let’s see if and how this trend continues.