Meshtastic Pitfall #1 - Broadcasting You Location to the Entire Mesh Network

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Meshtastic Pitfall #1 - Broadcasting You Location to the Entire Mesh Network

After playing with Meshtastic for a few days, I learned my first critical mistake. I broadcasted my GPS location to the entire mesh network. The way Meshtastic is designed, it will automatically send your device location to the world, unless you take steps to prevent that from happening. There is two ways that Meshtastic can get your device location: 1) via GPS; 2) via paired SmartPhone.

I am using the Heltec V3, which doesn't have onboard GPS. If you get a GPS for your board, make sure not to connect the GPS physically to the board until you have finished configuring Meshtastic on that board, which I will explain soon.

If you have a board that comes with GPS, and your intention is not to broadcast your location, then you should go set-up Meshtastic at a public location, so you can disable the GPS. Because, by default, Meshtastic will sense the GPS and automatically broadcast its position right off the bat.

Now, I don't intent to put a GPS on the Heltec V3. Instead, I intend to use it with the GPS on my phone.

But I didn't realize that as soon as I enable "Provide phone location to mesh", it would provide the sensitive information publicly to everyone. I thought it would give me a chance to set up who the information would go to. Turns out I had to set it up all the private channels before enabling that option.

Duke
Fri, 13 Sep 2024 21:32:19 -0700

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