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Hardware options

This page documents a certain number of LoRa and Meshtastic hardware devices we have tested or somehow evaluated. It is of course not exhaustive, and it is opinionated in the sense that it tries to guide you towards specific purchases to simplify your life.

Let us know if you want to buy a lot so we can organize.

This is the easiest, "just tell me what to buy" guide. There are more options below, but we only recommend devices that we have tested ourselves.

  • Companion: SeeedStudio Wio Tracker L1 Pro

    Wio Tracker L1 Pro

    The Tracker is small, sturdy, has a good battery life, a power switch and is cheap enough to get started.

    It needs a separate app, for example on your phone, but can be used to read messages with the buttons, in a pinch. No water resistance.

    62$ at Robotshop

    Alternatives:

    • RAK Wireless WisMesh Tag: credit-card sized, waterproof (IP66), two buttons, no display, magnetic USB pogo charging, 40$USD

    • Lilygo T-Echo: e-ink display, only two buttons, no power button, 45$USD, T-Echo Plus has a better battery for 66$USD

  • Standalone: T-Deck plus

    T-Deck plus

    Has keyboard and screen (yes, like a BlackBerry), useful if you don't want to use your phone.

    70$USD.

    Alternatives:

  • Repeater: WisMesh Solar Repeater Mini

    WisMesh Solar Repeater Mini

    For window, rooftop or in a tree installations, the mini is flexible and can be upgraded to a more powerful setup with a 1W booster kit.

    100$USD.

    Alternatives:

  • ⎇ Kit: HELTEC v4

    HELTEC v4

    This is a bare bones kit for hackers, running bots, or if you're really broke.

    The V4 is as simple (it's essentially a Arduino) and as cheap as it goes. The v4 does not come with a case, but one can be 3d-printed, or get the v3 which ships with a case. Make sure to pick 902-928MHz.

    You need to provide power over USB, any USB-C charger will do, needs a separate app, for example on your phone

    20-30$USD.

    Alternatives:

Tip

If you're just starting, just get the cheapest device you can get your hand on quickly, it's 50$. Plug it into your phone, a USB charger or a battery, and get talking!

How we classify devices

We have those categories:

Success

Those devices were successfully tested and used on a daily basis. A select few of those end up being recommended above. We only "recommend" one device per category to simplify user's choices but "success" devices should be also considered recommended.

In testing

We have our hands on those devices and are testing them. So far, they work, but need more testing before they can be promoted to a full "success".

Untested

Those devices are interesting, but we haven't lay our hands on them yet.

Warning

We tested those devices, and there are serious caveats against using them. Do not order one unless you know what you read an understand the note on the device.

Not working

We tested those devices, and we recommend against using them entirely.

Note that the devices are rated for compliance with Meshcore for the moment, but should generally also work with Meshtastic.

Reticulum support is spottier, and not explicitly covered here. Each software project has their own list of compatible hardware which we do not try to cover here.

Companions

Those are day-to-day use device, can you can easily carry in a pocket or a pouch. Those generally have a battery. They need a phone or computer to operate.

Success

  • SeeedStudio Wio Tracker L1 Pro: 1.3" OLED, 3D-Printed Casing, 2000mAh battery, GPS, nRF5284 / SX1262, 4-way joystick, menu button, reset button, power switch, 3 LEDs 43$USD, 62$ at Robotshop

  • WisMesh Pocket V2: GNSS, 1.3" OLED, acceleration sensor, power button, 3200mAh battery, USB-C powered, 100$

  • T-Echo: 200x200 e-ink display, NRF52840, GPS, BT 5.0, no wifi, two buttons, no power button, NFC, 850mAh battery, temperature/pressure sensor, 55$USD
  • cheap Aliexpress Heltec v4 kit, 43CAD
  • Seeedstudio XIAO ESP32S3 & Wio-SX1262 Kit: tiny, - 40℃ ~ 100℃, WiFi 2.4GHz, BLE 5.0 / Mesh, reset/boot button, 22x23x57mm, 37g, exposed GPIO ports, cheap (20$), does not ship with Meshtastic firmware, needs full erase before reflash or gets into a boot loop
  • RAK Wireless WisMesh Tag: 1000 mAh battery, IP66 rating, two buttons, status LED, magnetic USB pogo charging, nRF52840/SX1262, GPS, 92 x 59 x 7.5 mm, 40$USD
  • SeeedStudio SenseCAP Card Tracker T1000-E (40$USD) IP65, 700mAh battery, nRF52840/LR1110, GPS, 85 * 55 * 6.5 mm, 32g, -20℃ to +60℃ operation, buzzer, magnetic pogo pins USB charging, 40$USD, anarcat managed get this one in a boot loop but eventually recovered. Nice and portable, waterproof. See this guide for how to use that single button, in particular use triple-click to turn off the buzzer.

In testing

  • Elecrow ThinkNode M1: nRF52840, 1200mAh battery, 1.54" e-ink display, GPS, BLE, RP-SMA, -10~50°C, 54$USD, 89$CAD at Muzi, similar to the Lilygo T-Echo, but has a better battery

Untested

  • Muzi has builds on top of the Heltec, e.g. this H2T (137CAD) made with a Heltec T114, this R1 Neo (123CAD) is similar to the WisMesh Pocket, but smaller, better sealed, but more expensive
  • SenseCAP MeshTracker X1: Next generation of the T1000-E. LR2021, IP66, USB-C connector, 1100mAh, claims 5 days battery, dual GPS, BT, 1 RGB LED, 2 buttons, -20 to 60℃ operation, 90*57*8 mm, 45g, 43$USD.
  • Meshtiny: tiny companion, nRF52840, SX1262, OLED, Buzzer, user, reset button, power switch, 3-way encoder button, two LEDs, 250mAh Battery, 60$USD
  • GAT562 Meshtastic Tracker: nRF52840/SX1262, 60g, 2500mAh battery, GPS, 1.3-inch TFT screen, some open designs

Standalone

Those are day-to-day use device, can you can easily carry in a pocket or a pouch. They have a battery and do not need a phone or computer to operate.

Success

  • Heltec v4 prebuilt kit, 50-60USD: touch screen, 18650 flat-top battery (tight, hard to remove), belt clip bulges the back cover.
  • Lilygo T-Deck Plus (80$): blackberry-like, standalone device with battery, keyboard, trackball, LCD display, 2000mAh battery, BLE, WiFi, GPS, MicroSD card reader, microphone/speake. Note that an order in March 2026 took 24 days to deliver.
  • Lilygo T-Lora Pager: smaller, quirkier, 90$USD. Keyboard and wheel are unreliable, and it has no touch scren. It's really cute though.

Untested

  • T-Deck Pro: 3.1" e-ink touch screen, 4G module, WiFi 2.4GHz, BLE 5, GPS, TF Card, mic, speaker, keypad, see also the T5 e-paper s3 pro.
  • Elecrow M9, not yet released, similar to the D-Teck, LCD display, no touch screen, real time clock, GPS, SD card, to be confirmed.
  • Attaky Mesh desk: modular ESP32 kit with battery, SX1262 radio, GPS receiver, 48-keys QWERTY keyboard, custom 1000 mAh battery, 68 × 97 × 29.8 mm, 157g (data sheet), 240$USD, runs wadamesh
  • Tanmatsu cyberdeck. ESP32-P4, E22-900M22S LoRa radio, microSD card socket, 3D-printed case, QWERTY keyboard, 2500mAh Li-Po battery, audio jack and speaker, expansion port, opensource, 100EUR, runs wadamesh
  • M5 Cardputer Adv. ESP32 handheld, 1.14" LCD, 56-key keyboard, 1750mAh lithium, microphone, 1W speaker and audio jack, infrared, microSD, SX1262 expansion port, not supported by stock Meshcore firmware, but many alternative firmware, for example: MultiMote/meshcore-cardputer-adv, sosprz/meshcore-cardputer-adv, Stachugit/MeshCore-Cardputer-ADV

Note that those devices depend on the proprietary Ripple firmware, but you can now try the Wadamesh firmware as well, which is open source, and is much more intuitive and powerful. Its only downside is that it seems to be developed with the help of an LLM (Claude).

Cyberdecks

A special kind of device that's worth its own section is the cyberdeck. That's a custom-built device that often runs more than the basic firmware, sometimes a full (Linux) operating system which allows for more functionality than the basic standalone device.

Typically, Cyberdecks are hand-crafted, but here we cheat a little and list pre-built devices or kits.

The main thing that separates this from the above standalone devices is that they are more generic Linux computers with more capabilities than embedded devices above.

Success

  • Clockwork PI uConsole. wrapper around a Raspberry PI CM4, with modular expansion ports: 720p 5.0-inch IPS screen, 74-keys QWERTY keyboard with gaming buttons, 18650 battery module, cellular modem, and a third party SDR, LoRa, GPS, USB, RTC, ethernet module. Video review says the built-in WiFi antenna is not great but can be modified with a 3D printer, and that the trackball is not great. 6-7h runtime, half with a SDR.

Untested

  • Mecha Comet. pre-order as of July 2026, supports LoRa through a M.2 connector, to be clarified.
  • M5 (who made the Cardputer Adv above) also made a Cardputer zero which is a real Raspberry Pi underneath, while still being compatible with the Cap LoRa 1262

There there is a long list of small computers like the MNT Reform pocket that are relatively normal computers, without necessarily any specific LoRa hardware. But you can still hook up a LoRa modem over USB, for example.

In any case, you'll need software other than the stock (or third-party) firmware to talk on the mesh with those devices. The uconsole has its own meshcore-uconsole firmware, for others there are various wrappers around the Python library (previously called pyMC, now called openHop) like tui-meshcore.

This blog post explains the pyMC project further and lists a couple of devices you can hookup to your computer directly:

Repeaters

Those are bulkier devices that are mounted on a mast or are used as a back-haul, possibly with a special antenna. The devices may or many not have batteries.

Success

Untested

Mounts

Base stations will typically be mounted on rooftops or poles.

The Ottawa Mesh docs have great documentation and examples for this.

Development boards

Those are bare-bones circuit boards that work standalone but cannot really be used in production as they lack a proper case.

The devices here generally do not have a battery.

Success

  • HELTEC v4 (v3) is the cheapest option, v3 is 20$ (30$CAD) with the case, v4 doesn't ship with a case (but no battery, and battery doesn't fit in the case). one advantage Heltec has over the below RAK kits is that you can connect to them over wifi, the downside is they use more power because they are ESP32 based instead of NRF5280, might be cheaper at AliExpress
  • the RAK19003 base kit (28$) is more expensive, but less power-hungry than the Heltec
  • XIAO ESP32S3 & Wio-SX1262 Kit: barebones board, tiny, cheap, WiFi 2.4GHz, BLE 5.0 / Mesh, reset/boot button (hidden under the daughterboard, press both to enter JTAG so you can flash, requires opening the case and removing the daughterboard), - 40℃ ~ 100℃, 22x23x57mm, 37g, exposed GPIO ports, no battery, 20$. Probably the cheapest and smallest kit all around.

In testing

  • XIAO nRF52840 & Wio-SX1262 Kit: even tinier, nRF52840, Semtech SX1262, NFC, BT, -40°C ~ 65°C, 22 x 21 x 17.8mm. Probably the smallest kit you can get. Reset button hard to reach.

Untested

  • T-Beam Supreme: 1.3" OLED display, 18650 battery socket, magnetometer, 2.4GHz WiFi, BLE 5, GNSS, no case, ESP32, 52$, the T-Beam SoftRF is similar but without a display and cheaper, 30$USD
  • Heltec Vision Master E290: eink dev board, ESP32S3 SX1262, 20$USD 180 days display, WiFi, BT

Cases

If you use a development board, you might want a case around it: most of them (except the Heltec v3) come without a case.

The Ottawa folks recommend the AlleyCat models, although the license on the page is a bit unclear, as it claims CC BY-SA but then follows that with a paragraph limiting commercial use.

DIY build on top of the RAK kit

The RAK19003 base kit comes without a case, but one can be printed. It's tricky because there are many (83!) design files in there.

On top of 3D-printing the case, you need to also buy:

Power

Moved to its own page, see Power.

Batteries

Moved to its own page, see Batteries.

Antennas

Tip

For a more in-depth discussion about antenna testing, theory and practice, see the Antennas section.

We have experience with this:

Warning

The antenna reports project warns against using a SeeedStudio 600mm antenna, particularly for non-US frequencies. While it is a different antenna, it's unclear if the above RF Explorer has the same flaw, further testing necessary.

Note that, to connect those to (say) a Heltec, you will need adapters:

N (Antenna) --(cable)--> RP-SMA --(adaptor)--> SMA --(pigtail)--> IPEX U.FL (Heltec v4)

Nooelec has a kit.

See also this connector guide for recognizing those N, RP-SMA, SMA and IPEX connectors. And yes, in the above setup, we essentially touch on all the connectors from the guide.

Other lists include:

Alfa upgrade on the SenseCAP P1

The SenseCAP Solar Node P1 can be upgraded with an Alfa antenna easily, but needs some sort of adapter because the stock connectors are SMA-based.

For this, you need a 30cm N to RP-SMA pigtail connector.

Make sure you get a "bulkhead mount“ that has a little flat piece chamfered off the side, which helps prevent it from rotating in the hole when you tighten it down. Otherwise it won't fit in the socket.

This 20 cm pigtail from Muzi Works works, but is a little short: you can only install it on the hole nearest to the router instead of the further one, as shown on the image here.

This is a SMA to N converter that fits above the stock pigtail sold at Addison.

It also raises the antenna a little higher which is good because it clears the solar panel better. But it introduces some loss compared to a pigtail.

Warning

We have had problems with this connector, where packets would only be sent out and not received correctly.

Resellers

The above lists generally link to the upstream supplier or official resellers.

There are, however, other resellers that might be more interesting to you for various reasons:

Warning

We've had trouble with these:

  • Veshra: more expensive, but local, possibly south shore (to be confirmed); stocks antennas, batteries, Heltec, currently no SeeedStudio, RAK, or ESP32 devices. Recent orders have failed, some unanswered. Not recommended anymore.

Hacks

Other documentation

  1. It's really important to get button-top batteries for the SenseCAP Solar node P1! Normal flat-top batteries won't connect correctly. Seriously consider buying it with batteries, as button-top batteries are often more expensive, which makes the RobotShop kit particularly attractive. ↩