The loading of the Meshtastic firmware on the Heltec ESP32 v3 devices is really simple if done via a Linux PC/RaspberryPi. There are of course other ways to load the firmware using a web browser that supports USB/Serial devices and this method is preferred by many however, being a Linux command line junkie I far prefer the simplicity of using the Linux command line to do the job.

So, how much experience with the Linux command line do you need?

In all honesty none at all. If you know how to use copy and paste then all you have to do is follow the simple steps I’ve detailed below. In reality it will only take a few minutes to do so, don’t be put off by the long article, I’ve just tried to cover everything and provide screen shots along the way.

To get started fire up your Linux PC/RaspberryPi and get yourself to the desktop. Next you will need to open a Linux command line terminal. This is often just called “Terminal” on most Linux desktop installations.

The first thing you need to do is check to see if you have python3 installed. This is done using the following command:

python3 --version

Running the above command you should see a result something like what is shown below.

Next we need to check if pip3 is installed using the following command:

pip3 --version

If pip3 is installed then you should get a result similar to that shown below.

If your computer doesn’t have Python3 or Pip3 installed they can be easily installed from the command line. To install Python3 enter the following command into your terminal:

sudo apt install python3

You will be asked to enter your login password and then the installation will begin. You should see output in your terminal similar to that shown below.

To install Pip3 enter the following command into your terminal:

sudo apt-get install python3-pip

This will detail a long list of packages that will be installed on your computer, Enter Y to answer Yes and let the packages install.

You will see many messages scroll up the terminal screen such as getting, selecting, preparing, unpacking and setting up, this is all normal.

Once Pip3 is installed you should be dropped back at the command line with a terminal screen that looks something like the one below.

At this point you will now have Python3 and Pip3 available on your computer.

You are now ready to install the tool we are going to use to check your Meshtastic device is connected to your PC and install the firmware to it. (Do not connect your Meshtastic device to your PC just yet!)

Run the following command in your terminal to install the ESP Tool:

pip3 install --upgrade esptool

You will see an output from the installation process similar to that shown below.

Now that we have the ESP tool installed plug your Meshtastic device into your USB port on your computer and then run the following command to interrogate the device to find out what kind of device it is.

esptool chip_id

You should see the information about your device that looks similar to that shown below. This information should confirm the device type (ESP32) and which USB port it is connected on (/dev/tty/USB0).

Once you have this information you will need to download the firmware for your device from Github using the following URL:

https://github.com/meshtastic/firmware/releases

At the time of writing this I downloaded and used the v2.2.22.404d firmware which I have found to be extremely reliable.

In your terminal you now need to change directory (cd) into the Downloads directory where your downloaded firmware should be. (If you downloaded your firmware into another directory then you will need to cd into that directory). Use the following command to change directory into the Downloads directory.

cd ~/Downloads

Now we need to find the filename of the firmware we have just downloaded, we can use the list directory contents command to find the file using the simple command below.

ls -la firm*.zip

In the screenshot above we can see that the filename is called
firmware-2.2.22.404d0dd.zip.
We now need to unzip the file using the unzip command.

unzip firmware-2.2.22.404d0dd.zip

You’ll see lots of output from the unzip command about inflating files etc, this is normal.

Once the file has been unzipped you are ready to load the firmware onto your Heltec device. First you need to find the .bin file for your Heltec device. Use the following ls command to list the files available.

ls -la firmware-heltec*

This will list out all the firmware file options for the Heltec device as shown below.

The file you need to use for a new firmware installation on a Heltec v3 device is
firmware-heltec-v3-2.2.22.404d0dd.bin. (If you downloaded a different version then the version number in the file will be different).

Using the filename you found above enter the following command into your terminal.

./device-install.sh -f firmware-heltec-v3-2.2.22.404d0dd.bin

This will now clear down your Heltec device and will load the Meshtastic firmware. This will take a little time especially on slower computers like the RaspberryPi so, just let it run until it finishes. Do not interrupt the process whilst it is running.

Once the firmware is loaded the Heltec device will reboot and you will see the Meshtastic banner on the OLED screen. Your device is now ready for configuration.

Now that you have Python3 and Pip3 installed you can load the firmware onto other devices just by downloading the firmware and then running the device-install.sh script file, you won’t need to install Python3 or Pip3 again.

If you want to update your device in the future to a newer version of the firmware then just use the update script and update binary file as shown below.

./device-update.sh -f firmware-heltec-v3-2.2.22.404d0dd-update.bin

That’s it, you are now a Linux Command line junkie!

More soon …

Meshtastic is a relatively new thing in the internet of things (IOT) world and is gaining traction in the U.K. at the moment.

So what is Meshtastic?

Meshtastic is an open source, off-grid, decentralised mesh network built to run on affordable, low-power devices on the 868Mhz industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) band. (Some devices can also run on the 433Mhz 70cm HAM band.)

The ISM band is licence free but, has limits on the RF power levels that can be used. The one plus over the HAM bands is that you can legally transfer encrypted messages over the ISM band making it secure.

The best way to think of Meshtastic is a radio version of the online decentralised Matrix chat system but, without the large server requirements and ever growing database!

There are quite a few Meshtastic compatible devices on the market today with many costing around the £20 mark whilst others like the LillyGo T-Echo costing over £100 in the U.K. even though they are less than half the price in the USA.

Since I’m just starting out on my Meshtastic adventure I thought I’d start with a pair of Heltec ESP32 v3 devices that are normally readily available on Amazon but, due to the current push to build a U.K. wide mesh, they are currently out of stock pretty much everywhere.

Loading the Meshtastic firmware onto the devices is fairly straight forward and can be done using the web installer via either the Edge or Chromium web browsers.
(Note: If using Windows O/S you will need to install some drivers from the Meshtastic website to be able to communicate with the devices)

Having neither of the two browsers and being a Linux command line junkie I decided to use the Python programme to load the firmware onto the two devices. It’s worth noting that you don’t need any drivers to be able to communicate with the devices if you’re using either Debian or one of the many Ubuntu flavours of Linux O/S.

Using the Python command line program sounds like a more complicated approach but, in reality it’s super simple, extremely reliable, quick and if like me you use a Linux PC in the radio shack then you most likely already have most of what you need to get the job done. Just follow the simple steps as laid out on the Meshtastic web site and you’ll have the firmware loaded in no time at all.

The firmware takes less than a minute to copy across to the Heltec device and is automatically rebooted ready for configuration once the transfer has completed.

It is possible to configure the device via the command line tool however, since there is a nice GUI app for both Apple iOS and Android devices I decided to install the Meshtastic app on my iPad and connect to the device via Bluetooth to configure it.

Once you’ve got the Meshtastic app installed on your device and have connected via Bluetooth you’ll be ready to start configuring the device to join the mesh. The first thing you want to do is set the region. This is different in each country but, in the UK we use the EU_868 region settings. This will set the device to use the 868Mhz ISM band which is the band being used to build the U.K. wide mesh.

There is a multitude of configuration options within the app which I will go into in greater detail in a series of articles at a later date.

For those of you that, like me aren’t near any other nodes you can connect the devices to the internet and use the Meshtastic MQTT server to communicate with other nodes. This of course isn’t off-grid but, it will get you started until the mesh grows into your local area at which point your device will automatically start communicating with the other nodes over radio.

Once you are connected to either the MQTT server or other nodes via radio you will see the other node details appear in the Meshtastic app. It’s interesting to look at the information and see signal strengths and traffic levels etc for each node.

There are a multitude of cases available for the Heltec v3 devices, especially if you have access to a 3D printer. One of the nicest cases I have seen is the Bender from IKB3D (I know, it’s a strange name!) but, it really is a super little case for the Heltec series of devices.

You can either buy the 3D print files for £8.99 and print it yourself or just order a pre-printed and assembled case directly from the website although, due to demand there is a long lead time currently.

More soon …