cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/2189807
Held together without any solder ^^
Uses an old phone battery for power and is housed in the box that the heltec v3 hardware was shipped in. Unfortunately I had to bend a row of pins to fit it in the box with the battery, but this is only because on my model the two rows of pins are already soldered in. Normally they should be included extra I think.
I am seeing lots of other meshtastic devices, but haven't yet managed to send a message. Maybe I am not in a good location or I need a better antenna.
Kinda want to buy a second device just for messing around with two of these ^^
I highly recommend buying off of aliexpress directly.
I don't have one. It's to tinker with my first esp32 board and lora.
It's basically a hobby. If you live somewhere super rural or something it might be interesting to chat with your neighbor or whatever but I think meshtastic is still too much in the alpha stage to be usable really.
It might be useful on a festival or something, where cell networks are overloaded and you and your friends can contact each other via meshtastic. Idk if that would work though.