Meshtastic Node

Meshtastic is an open-source mesh networking project for LoRa radios. If you already have a Meshtastic device — or want to build one — you can contribute environmental telemetry to the WeSense network through the mesh.

WeSense doesn't replace Meshtastic or require special firmware. You run standard Meshtastic firmware with environmental sensors enabled, and WeSense picks up the telemetry data via MQTT.

What You Need

• A Meshtastic-compatible board with LoRa radio (e.g. Heltec V3, LilyGo T-Beam, RAK WisBlock)
• One or more environmental sensors supported by Meshtastic (BME280, BME680, SHT4x, etc.)
• Standard Meshtastic firmware

For hardware options and flashing instructions, see the Meshtastic Getting Started guide. WeSense doesn't prescribe specific hardware — any Meshtastic node with environmental sensors will work.

Enable Environmental Telemetry

In the Meshtastic app or web interface:

1. Go to Module Configuration → Telemetry
2. Enable Environment Metrics
3. Set the Environment Update Interval to 1800 seconds (30 minutes) — this is the most frequent setting available. The software allows up to 7 days, but anything longer than 30 minutes is not useful for environmental monitoring.
4. Ensure your sensors are wired and detected (check the device info screen)

Meshtastic supports sensors like BME280, BME680, SHT4x, and others. See the Meshtastic Telemetry docs for the full list of supported sensors and wiring guides.

Position Update Interval

For your sensor data to appear on the WeSense map, a position (GPS or fixed) must be associated with your node. Meshtastic sends position and environmental telemetry as separate messages, and the WeSense ingester caches and correlates them.

Speed up initial detection

When first setting up your node, set the Position Broadcast Interval to a short value (e.g. 120 seconds). Once your node appears on the WeSense map, you can increase this to a longer interval (e.g. 3600 seconds / 1 hour) — the ingester caches your last known position and will continue to use it for incoming telemetry readings. You don't need frequent position updates once the initial location is cached.

If using a fixed position (no GPS), set it in Module Configuration → Position → Fixed Position and it will be sent with each position broadcast.

MQTT Configuration

Your Meshtastic node's telemetry reaches WeSense via MQTT. There are two paths:

Option 1: Via a Local WeSense Meshtastic Gateway (recommended)

If someone in your mesh neighbourhood is running a WeSense Meshtastic Gateway, your data automatically flows through their gateway into the WeSense network. You don't need to configure anything on your node beyond enabling environmental telemetry — and your node doesn't need internet access. Only the gateway needs an internet connection.

No one running a gateway near you? You can build one yourself — it's a standard Meshtastic node with WiFi and a WeSense station.

This is the encouraged approach — it reduces dependency on the public Meshtastic MQTT servers and gives your community more control over the data path.

Option 2: Via Public Meshtastic MQTT

If there's no local gateway, your data can reach WeSense through the public Meshtastic MQTT infrastructure at mqtt.meshtastic.org. WeSense subscribes to the public feed and ingests environmental telemetry from all regions.

For this to work, your node needs a path to the internet — either directly (WiFi-connected node) or via a gateway node that forwards to mqtt.meshtastic.org.

Note on public MQTT

The public Meshtastic MQTT servers can experience instability. Running a local gateway gives you a more reliable path and lets you forward to both WeSense and the public Meshtastic network simultaneously.

How Your Data Reaches WeSense

Your Meshtastic Node (LoRa radio)
        ↓ mesh
Gateway Node (internet-connected)
        ↓ MQTT
WeSense Meshtastic Ingester
        ↓ decode protobuf + AES decrypt
        ↓ correlate position + telemetry
        ↓ geocode (ISO 3166)
ClickHouse + Live Map

Meshtastic sends position, environmental telemetry, and device info as separate messages — often minutes apart. The WeSense ingester caches these per node and correlates them, so your sensor readings get tagged with the correct location and device name even though they arrive at different times.

The ingester caches:

• Position — latitude, longitude, altitude (from GPS or fixed position)
• Environmental telemetry — sensor readings (temperature, humidity, pressure, battery)
• Device info — the friendly name you set for your node

What Gets Ingested

The ingester extracts environmental metrics from Meshtastic telemetry messages:

• Temperature
• Humidity
• Barometric pressure
• Battery voltage (device health)

These are published as standard WeSense readings alongside data from all other sources — same geocoding, same deduplication, same ClickHouse schema, same live map.

It may take time for your node to appear

Your node won't show up on the WeSense map until the ingester has received both a position message and a telemetry message from your device. How long this takes depends entirely on your update intervals — if your position and telemetry intervals are set to the recommended values above, expect a few minutes to an hour. If they're set to the defaults (which can be days), it could take that long.

Naming Your Node

Set a descriptive long name for your node in the Meshtastic app (User → Long Name). This name is sent to the WeSense ingester and displayed on the map.

Currently, the ingester recognises nodes with a WS- prefix in their name as official WeSense outdoor sensors. All other nodes are left unclassified and the WeSense deployment classifier service will attempt to infer whether the sensor is indoor or outdoor using temperature variance, weather correlation, and other data analysis over time.

Deployment Type Tags (planned)

Meshtastic doesn't currently have a metadata field for indoor/outdoor/mixed deployment type. We plan to add name-based tagging so you can indicate your deployment type:

Tag in Name	Deployment Type	Example Long Name
[in]	Indoor	Kitchen Sensor [in]
[out]	Outdoor	Garden Node [out]
[mix]	Mixed (balcony, garage, etc.)	Balcony [mix]

This is not yet implemented in the ingester — for now, the classifier handles it automatically. We also hope to work with the Meshtastic project to add deployment type as a standard metadata field in a future firmware version.

Deduplication

Meshtastic's mesh flooding means the same message can arrive multiple times via different paths. The WeSense ingester handles this automatically with an in-memory deduplication cache (keyed on node ID, reading type, and timestamp). ClickHouse's ReplacingMergeTree provides a second layer of safety.

Typical duplicate rates vary by region — from under 2% in sparse networks to over 50% in dense urban meshes. This is handled transparently; you don't need to worry about it.