Programming the Wio Tracker L1 Pro for Meshcore - And BIG Grumpy Dad News

[00:00:00]Welcome.

[00:00:02]Are you new to Mesh Corp?

[00:00:04]Were you told about some of its features that you could text off-grid situations, no cellular, after hurricane, storms, just cellular failure, no internet backbone, and you want to be able to text family members or another building at work or in somebody for an emergency and everything else has failed and you were told you had to buy one of these devices, a little companion so that your phone could connect into this mesh. So then you get this in and realize it's not on Mesh Corp. So what the hell you supposed to do now?

[00:00:39]I'm here to help you out.

[00:00:55]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Welcome back to another Mesh Corp video.

[00:01:37]Today's video, we're going to go over taking a companion. I know there's a lot of people who are buying these right now, who are new to Mesh Corp, and um not really familiar with how to program it. So we're going to go ahead and program a Weego L1 Pro Tracker. Um you can get these on Amazon. I know they are a little bit cheaper on some other websites. I'm Amazon spoiled. There will be a link below in the description to purchase one of these. And yes, it's a link that helps the channel out. It doesn't increase your price, and I think I make 37 cents off of it. Um, it helps buy a couple sheets of toilet paper. I don't know.

[00:02:19]But, so we're going to have the WeeO Tracker L1 Pro. I'm going to show you how to set it up and eventually turn it into what this is. This is an improved version. But, let's go ahead and we'll go ahead and get started getting into this. Before we go any further, please do a favor, hit the like button, help out my channel. Trying to build this channel up, make it a mesh um, more Mesh Core friendly video. And I got some important news at the end of the video for you. You have to stay tuned for that. Let's go.

[00:02:48]All right, so this is a brand new box that is completely still sealed. Um, it is the WeeO Tracker L1 Pro from Seeed SenseCap. I don't know how that all works, but that's what it is. Um, I like this one that while it does have a little bit less power than say a V4, if you're familiar with those, what I like about this is it has an on-off button on the side. So, you can easily easily just flip it on and off. See, right there.

[00:03:16]And And that's one reason why I like it.

[00:03:17]So, if it's at night and starts making sound, or if I know I'm not going to be anywhere around a mesh or anything like that, and I just want to turn it off, I can easily just flip the button.

[00:03:26]Um, battery life is okay on it. I'm not going to sit here and lie to y'all.

[00:03:29]You'll know I try to be as truthful as possible. Um, I actually have Now, this is a third one. But, I actually have two other another one like this.

[00:03:39]Which looks like this.

[00:03:42]This one I have on Meshtastic because I am still trying to keep the faith down here without I'm not trying to make this a bashing video because there are some people out there who are into both meshcore and meshtastic and meshtastic is completely silent. I even have this going through my Wi-Fi to make it MQTT and it's still silent. Um some in the world ones they're split right now in the city of New Orleans and it's not what this video is about but basically so I am running two. What I will say is I find that the mesh tastic version this battery will last two to three days longer than this one. If these are both fully charged I can get about three days out of maybe almost four out of this where I can go almost a week with this one with the meshtastic version.

[00:04:29]Um Now could it be because this one's always silent so it doesn't have to transmit but this one is is always doing something and always receiving cuz we are busy with meshcore? I don't know that's possible.

[00:04:42]Um but I just like want to be you know straight with y'all about about battery life. So So here's my brand new one completely brand new and it comes you know in this little baggy.

[00:04:55]You have the radio and you have the antenna that's in here which is a stock antenna which um it's not as bad as the P1 Pro antenna that we always make fun of but it's right above it. I mean it's it's nothing great to write home for and it's also one of the most pain in the butt parts is if you look inside of it you probably can't see it but this is a RP-SMA female meaning it has a pin in the middle.

[00:05:23]So the antenna does not which means you can't just go and take a muzzy antenna which is a big upgrade for this device.

[00:05:31]You can't just take a muzzy antenna a muzzy depending on how you want to pronounce it because this one also has a pin in it. So just remember that before we get too far. So when you put your antenna on here and you immediately turn it on.

[00:05:50]Usually these come with a pretty decent charge on them.

[00:05:53]What you're going to notice is that when you turn this on, it comes with Mastastic on it.

[00:06:00]So, it will says welcome to Mastastic and it wants me to configure. I'm not going to do nothing else with this. What I am going to do now is I'm going to come to meshcore.io.

[00:06:11]That is the only official website for Meshcore that we deal with. And that's what I'm asking everybody else to deal with. We're not going to play all these games. We're not going to get involved in that. We're trying to keep this a short video cuz I got a complaint in my last video that my my videos are too long. At the same time I got one saying they they enjoyed all the extra information cuz there was so much covered.

[00:06:30]Can't make everybody happy. So, you go to meshcore.io.

[00:06:34]What you're going to do is you're going to take USB, plug into your computer.

[00:06:38]My computer's on the floor. I only have a 3-ft USB right here. So, trust me, bro. But I'm plugging even with it turned on.

[00:06:46]And I'm plugging the Wheel Tracker into my computer through USB. I'm then coming up here to flasher.

[00:06:58]And then I'm going to search for I'm just going to type L1 Pro. You only have to go that far.

[00:07:06]Seeed Studio L1 Pro.

[00:07:10]I'm going to connect to this with Bluetooth. And it's going to go wirelessly to my phones, right? So, I need the companion Bluetooth.

[00:07:22]All right. So, then what I do is once this is plugged in, I'm going to hit enter DFU mode.

[00:07:29]And it's going to come up with two things. So, if you don't know which one this possible is, you can always play the game of unplugging the USB.

[00:07:39]And then one of them goes away.

[00:07:41]You plug it back in.

[00:07:45]It should recognize it.

[00:07:47]It pops back up.

[00:07:48]And we're going to press connect.

[00:07:58]And then we're going to erase flash.

[00:08:03]We want to erase all the firmware that's on it right now.

[00:08:09]Now you can see this has been renamed.

[00:08:10]It's even got a different port. But we know that this 22 is my I keep a companion always USB into this computer so that I always get all the messages and everything going on in the Gulf Coast mesh with mesh core.

[00:08:25]So that's a whole different video or something for another day. Um so we know that that's always that. So we know that this is going to be it. So we can hit connect.

[00:08:34]And as you can see it is deleting the firmware.

[00:08:39]It says device erase firmware has been flashed and flash has been erased. You can flash mesh core now.

[00:08:45]So I don't unplug it. I don't do anything. I just hit flash at this point.

[00:08:52]Again pick the correct one.

[00:08:56]And now it's going to flash.

[00:09:03]All right. It is complete. It gave a beep. And now when it pops up it pops up with mesh core. It's going to give you zero messages. It's going to give you a pin.

[00:09:18]All right. So I'm going to close this out and hit close.

[00:09:21]I'm done with this site now.

[00:09:24]I don't need it for anything else.

[00:09:26]So I'm leaving this on. So now what I'm going to do is I'm going to come to my phone.

[00:09:35]And I had the mesh core app downloaded.

[00:09:38]I'mma to to Mesh app.

[00:09:44]And on the connect button button on top, I'm hitting connect. And look, somebody made a comment about my screen being cracked. I have a screen cover that's on it that is cracked to hell and I don't have a screen cover to to to correct it and it doesn't bother me. So, all right. So, I'm hitting the refresh button on the bottom and it says Mesh app or something something something something. It says Mesh app F85 with 82 at the end. And if I look in the top left corner, it has Mesh you probably can't see it. And it says F85 whatever whatever. So, I'm hitting connect.

[00:10:20]It's asking me for my PIN.

[00:10:22]Which the PIN is down here. And it says PIN 9500.

[00:10:27]So, I'm doing 9500. If the PIN goes away, just hit the big button.

[00:10:34]Uh one.

[00:10:37]And it says now connected.

[00:10:42]And you just follow the steps. It says welcome to Mesh app.

[00:10:46]Device setup, hit continue.

[00:10:50]It wants me to enter my name.

[00:10:52]Um I give it them I'm going to call I'm going to forget what I'm supposed to be calling this one.

[00:10:58]So, after I name it, I'm hitting continue. It's asking me select radio settings down here in the Gulf Coast Mesh. We're mostly using USA default.

[00:11:08]We might adjust the CR, but that's a different one for a different video.

[00:11:12]And that's it. I'm now online.

[00:11:15]I'mma let it sit. Now, what I will do is and one thing I suggest, especially if you are in range of a repeater, you know, the way this is supposed to work is you have a companion in your house, you put a repeater on your back fence.

[00:11:28]Hopefully a little bit higher up if you have the room or you don't have a HOA, you know, chimney, or something like that, that can hit a repeater higher up, further out somewhere, and you continue to help the mesh in the chain, and everything else.

[00:11:43]You need to do a advert flood routed. So, if you look at the little icon on top that looks like the little tower, or the little RF, or something like that, you hit that, and you hit flood routed.

[00:11:57]And it says on the bottom, advert flood routed.

[00:12:00]Now, again, if you're in the Gulf Coast mesh, majority of the mesh locations around the United States, another thing that you need to do is go into your settings.

[00:12:15]And you're going to scroll all the way up until you see experimental settings. Hit experimental settings, and you're going to come up to see where it says path hash size. You see how this is on one byte?

[00:12:30]I need to flip this down. This is going to give you three different options. You want two byte, max 32 hops. And then you're going to hit the check.

[00:12:40]And then you're going to hit back.

[00:12:42]So, you want to make sure you're on two byte if you're in the area that has two byte repeaters, which again, down here in the Gulf Coast, um, especially if you're in the Louisiana area, Mississippi area, and all that, we're running two byte devices, um, right now.

[00:12:57]What's another hint for you? It's come to contact settings.

[00:13:01]And then, where see where it says auto add all? You're going to quickly fill up with 350 contacts. Me, I don't need everybody's companion loaded into my device. I'm not DMing nobody through this, or anything like that.

[00:13:15]Particularly, and if I am going to chit-chat with a buddy or two, we'll just create a channel. So, what I'm going to do is, instead of it being auto add all, I'm hitting auto add selected.

[00:13:25]And then I'm only going to check repeaters and room servers. And honestly, if you're never going to play with a room server, you might not even have to check that. But there's not a lot of them. There's only like three or four in our area. So, you can add it.

[00:13:36]So, that's it.

[00:13:38]Auto add selected. That but you the biggest, most important thing you need to check on this is overwrite oldest.

[00:13:49]Cuz what happens is old repeaters that you never see anymore cuz somebody was just playing with it or something like that at their house testing it, making videos, or anything like that. That's going to be in everybody's settings. But after about a month, it gets to be the oldest and when a new repeater pops up somewhere, it auto deletes it. Cuz if not, what happens is your device is going to say it's full when there's new repeaters coming online. So, that's about the only two things on that.

[00:14:17]Also, this should be automatic, but in the settings, make sure your transmit power is on 22.

[00:14:24]And do not Do not Do not enable this repeat mode. Cuz what's going to happen is if you enable repeat mode, it's going to change frequencies and you're not going to see any of our stuff. Repeat mode is the kind of make it something like fantastic where your device is repeating stuff. But again, that's going to completely change frequencies and you're not going to be no longer part of mesh. So, don't mess with that.

[00:14:49]That's it. Your device is now online.

[00:14:51]What I suggest you do, especially if you're in a golf course mesh down here, especially if you're in range at home of another repeater, you know, what's cool is you can, you know, start adding channels. Like it's going to come with public, but what I always do is I go and I press add channel in the top left and I press create a private channel.

[00:15:16]And I call it test local.

[00:15:20]Now, this is just me.

[00:15:22]You can call it test no repeater or anything like that, and you can hit create channel.

[00:15:27]You can also, with most meshes have, is you can hit also create one a channel. Go to create channel.

[00:15:37]You press add channel, and then you can also join either a public channel or hashtag channel. You put hashtag channel in, and you put test.

[00:15:49]So, it shows up as hashtag test.

[00:15:52]And basically, when somebody adds a word behind a hashtag instead of you having to add all kinds of the keys and stuff like that everybody who has hashtag test will be able to see it.

[00:16:04]So, why do I have those two channels?

[00:16:06]Well, there's times where I want to know if like sitting right here, can I hit a repeater? But, I don't want to go bother everybody by running a bunch of test.

[00:16:13]So, when I hit the test local private channel, I can sit here and type whatever the I want and nobody else is going to see it.

[00:16:23]So, I'm just going to use the word test.

[00:16:26]And after I press test, it's going to say sent, and it's going to show me a repeat.

[00:16:30]And I can even hold this down and it's going to say unknown repeater because right now it doesn't know which repeater it's what. We have to wait for that to advert. While we're sitting in this video, cuz we have 250 plus repeaters around here somebody's going to advert while we're here, and you're going to hear it. It's going to give you a a beep or something like that. Now with that other channel, the hashtag channel that I told you about, a lot of people have hashtag test, which means we're all sharing that channel. So, if I go to hashtag test, it is 11:30 at night. I'm not expecting anybody to answer this, but I'm just going to type a message saying test, anyone get this?

[00:17:11]And I'm going to see what happens. So, it did go out as you can see and this one actually got two repeats also. It is by my window now.

[00:17:20]Um, and we're going to see kind of what happened. Um, if anything happens. So, just in a little while I've made this video, you can see my contact list is already starting to fill up.

[00:17:33]And this is this is all repeaters that are adverting. Not going to go to detail about what adverting is or anything like that.

[00:17:40]But again, with the hashtag test channel, that's a way of kind of staying off the public. The public channel is getting a lot more active now because there's so many repeaters out. It doesn't stop all day, which is a good thing. Shows you the mesh is working and functioning properly. Hashtag test is just a way we can test back and forth.

[00:17:56]We also have hashtag hashtag repeater testing. When we put repeaters up and want to do some testing with that. Um, but normally during the day, somebody's going to answer that. And that hashtag, at least you know now that's getting out where their private test channel, nobody's going to see that. You'll see if it's getting out, but nobody will respond back cuz it's just a private channel that nobody can see.

[00:18:20]And on the hashtag test channel, I did get a response. I got a response from Albemarle mobile mobile two. And he says, "I got it." So, the name of this device that we're using that we programmed is is S J S O I T two cuz we're going to use it me and two three guys at work all have them and this is going to be one of theirs. So, he responded back to me with two hops and I put thanks, I'm making a companion video. I can even click he had he three hopped me in. So, I can even hold down his message and I can see exactly which repeaters it hit. I can't do it right this minute because I'm still receiving repeaters over the next 24 hours. So, I don't know exactly which one it is until Again, that's why But have to let it sit for a while. See, the problem is until this one hits and runs for a little bit, I don't even know what repeater this hit. So anyway, so the best thing to do is let this thing just sit idle. As long as it's connected to your phone and your phone's on silent, you won't have to hear any beeps. The problem comes in is if you lose Bluetooth on this thing, it will beep and chirp all night. Ask my wife how she know how I know.

[00:19:34]Cuz I have to hear it. That damn thing's burp beeping again. So that's it. You know we're online.

[00:19:39]You can create channels and stuff like that. If you and your buddies have channel, we have one called radio geeks for me and a bunch of ham guys. Um for different things for work my agency.

[00:19:48]We have a channel a private channel where and all you got to do for the private channel is you just share the key and I can name a private channel different than what you name it.

[00:19:58]I can name it something shorter or I don't know. As long as you share the key, that's all you need.

[00:20:06]That's it. Our device is online. Um I'm never really played with the little trackers that they sell the little flat car trackers because out here with the trees and everything we had, you have to have antennas.

[00:20:19]So um right now these have been working good.

[00:20:23]What else you we we're also using these for is on mesh mapping, war driving, whatever you want to call it.

[00:20:29]And what we'll do is I will pair it up.

[00:20:31]I like this cord right this this mag mount right here. I have it. Let me just tell you we have some some areas that have 80 plus mile an hour speeds and this thing will hold on and no problems at all. It has a rubber boot on the bottom. You don't have to worry about it it scratching your vehicle or anything like that. It's got a shorter 6 and 1/2 ft coax so you have a lot less loss where some of these have 10 or even 16 ft um cables and then you just take your little boozy antenna and you and you it it's it's SMA female so you can just take your Yagi antenna and you just connect it straight into there and you're good to go.

[00:21:13]That's it. So, when you do war driving mesh mapping, you really want an external antenna, but my whole point of this video is that it works great with this because when you're done mesh mapping, you can just turn the power off and then when you want to mesh map again, you just turn the power on.

[00:21:27]If you have a Android phone, you can do this is this is new to me cuz I don't have a Android, but they tell me you can run the mesh mapper app and the mesh core app at the same time using one radio. I think that's phenomenal and I'm going to tell y'all if y'all new to mesh mapping, check out my video on mesh mapping. I'll have a link at the end of this video. Um I'll have a link to this in the description below also in the Yagi.

[00:21:51]Um but mesh mapping helps out. People like me, I've put out 40 plus repeaters, but one thing we look at when we know we have important areas is where is it working at? And these things can help because you can walk around with them or anything like that. Um the only thing I will caution you also on is if you want to go from this to a Yagi antenna, you will have to and again, I didn't want to make this video too long, but I had to do it like three times today.

[00:22:22]Um you got four screws in the front. This cover really just comes off. You can get right behind it and you could and this right here just screws off. It's just a nut on top. This screws off and you just simply replace you snap it back in with the UFL connector, put it back, you know, put the top on the little male connector or whatever it is on top and you're done.

[00:22:47]Um but you will need these and I'm going to tell you you don't want 12-in, you don't want 6-in. There's a 2-in somewhere.

[00:22:57]Um if I can find it, a 3-in might work.

[00:23:00]Um but I ordered it. There's a 2-in model somewhere.

[00:23:05]And um I do order those for these companions. So, I guess I shouldn't have had that ready, but just someone to show at the last minute.

[00:23:13]Don't get them. Try not to make this video too long cuz I don't get no trouble. So, that's it.

[00:23:18]Big news is I have been working all day working with Scarlet from the um the Discord from the from the Gulf Coast Discord, and we are creating, if you saw my video, there are no good pre-made repeaters now. I want to be able to suggest a pre-made repeater for people to tell them, "Go buy this and just put it up."

[00:23:43]And there's nothing good out in the market. The P1 Pro sucks. I've show I've had a whole video on it. Results are horrible. I own them, so I know.

[00:23:53]Different antennas, they all suck.

[00:23:55]Um there's no good for mesh core. There's no good pre-built repeaters yet.

[00:24:03]So, it's going to be up to me to do it.

[00:24:06]I didn't want to do it, but I'm basically getting convinced to do it because everybody wants to buy a repeater that I'm doing. So, I am trying to work with Scarlet cuz she knows way more than I do about creating the boards. I'm telling her my my what what my vision is. She's putting it on paper, if you can call it that these days, and we eventually are going to come up with um you know, but we also want it to be cost. We don't want it to be cost prohibitive.

[00:24:36]I know some of us are getting older.

[00:24:38]Some people that are into this are coming from ham and then from things like that, fixed incomes, cuz I've dealt with those ham guys before. So, I don't want it to make I'm not looking to become Elon Musk, as I say, but I also want to be compensated for my time, which is only fair. Um so, we're trying to figure out exactly what everything's going to cost, my time of putting it together. Um do I try to make a 3D box? You know, we we What am I looking for? I'm looking for a 1 W radio that does Wi-Fi, that has a Wi-Fi external antenna, that does solar.

[00:25:14]I want all that in the package. I want a Wi-Fi external antenna, so when you put this thing up 150 250 200 250 ft in the air, you can sit on the ground with your phone and update the the um firmware.

[00:25:29]The The repeaters I'm personally building right now with V4s, with the screenless versions, I'm doing that right now.

[00:25:37]So, I've been asked to start putting those together. I'll maybe call those the Grumpy Peters, Grumpy Repeater, whatever, version one, just to try to get some little money in to help me start paying for some of this stuff that I'm going to need for the custom Grumpy Repeater. I don't know yet. Um a lot of planning. I don't even know where to start as far as the what kind of container I'm going to put it in, if you want to call it that, mold, or anything like that, cuz we don't even know what the board's going to be like yet. Um what kind of batteries do you put in it?

[00:26:09]On the 1 W board, you're going to need at least, at the very least, three 21700s or four 18650s.

[00:26:19]You're going to need at least a at the very least a 10 to a 13 W solar panel, so these things ain't going to be small.

[00:26:25]But again, there's plenty of small un lower powered repeaters out there for your delight.

[00:26:31]I don't want that. I want a full that I could All these hospitals that are asking me, "Where do I buy a repeater at right now?" I can't tell them, because there is none.

[00:26:41]Look, I I don't want to do this.

[00:26:43]It's just that that we're getting so big and so popular that all these agencies and all these meetings we go to in these ham meetings and everything else we're going through, people are like, "Look, I don't want to build nothing, but I want to get on board. What do I need to go buy?"

[00:26:56]There's nothing out there right now. So, I have to fill that niche.

[00:27:00]And like I told somebody a little while ago, I'm not saying I'm going to fill this niche forever.

[00:27:04]It's just that eventually I think somebody is going to get Mesh Core's attention.

[00:27:10]But for right now, they just too worried about Meshtastic because you can't tell me you're worried about Mesh Core when you don't have Wi-Fi up there.

[00:27:17]Cuz Bluetooth just doesn't have the range. Now, if you just trying to get on your your roof from Bluetooth, fine. But we're not.

[00:27:25]We're putting these things on 150, 200, 250, 300, 420, 550, and just this week a 650 ft site. Now, I'm not saying Wi-Fi is going to work that far, but just to show you what we're doing down here. If you haven't caught up us to us recently, gulfcoastmesh.org is the website. You can go to explorer.gulfcoastmesh.org or [email protected] and see exactly what we're doing. Okay, I'm not making this video any longer.

[00:27:55]Thank you all for watching. There'll be more Mesh Core videos coming up, and I'm I appreciate everybody's here. Please like the video before you leave.

[00:28:04]Subscribe if you want to see more of these videos. See you all in the next video.