MeshData — small files on Meshtastic without flooding the mesh

Two Spec5 MiniTrekkers, same primary channel, MeshData open in a browser on each. A Kompressed still, 549 bytes, crossed Meshtastic LoRa. The far node ACKed the pieces. The mesh was treated as a shared channel, not a broadband pipe.

Earlier the same week the smaller smokes went first: 20 bytes of text, a PNG around 100 bytes, a PNG around 1 KB. The 549-byte still is the one that counts. A real picture, squeezed to a size the channel can carry, sent in pieces, each piece confirmed before the next one spent more airtime.

Shared air

LoRa mesh is a neighborhood. ShortFast is already carrying other people's texts. A fat photo spends their airtime along with yours.

MeshData keeps the payload small and waits a random gap between pieces. The pacing control runs from max throughput to max range. Balanced is the polite middle. A faster send can mix in the LAN, and that is less stealthy on the mesh, so it stays off unless you ask for it.

Send the smallest thing that still changes what someone does.

On the camera

The useful default for a deer cam is an alert.

Run the detector on the camera. When something trips, send 100 bytes or fewer: a species or class hint, a confidence score, the time, and the node id. A hunter or a land manager reads "deer 0.91 at cam-3" on the mesh. The JPEG stays on the camera. ShortFast stays usable for everyone else in earshot.

That alert is the product. A still is the exception you choose, not the thing the camera does on every hit.

Deer Awareness is the map for the same season — how far a deer might hear or smell you. MeshData is the radio half. The camera already decided. The mesh only carries the score.

A still, if you need one

Kompressed gets a photo under a hard byte budget, the kind a radio actually gives you. MeshData moves that file in pieces and waits for an ACK. A multi-kilobyte dump occupies the channel for everyone in range.

The lab proof is the 549-byte Kompressed image, Spec5 to Spec5, through the MeshData page. The page will accept a file up to 512 KB. On ShortFast that number is a guardrail. Half a megabyte of photo is still a bad neighbor.

MeshData does not change the settings stored on the radio. It rides stock Meshtastic firmware. It is not affiliated with Meshtastic LLC. MeshData Plus is not for sale.

Spec5 MiniTrekker

The bench nodes were Spec5 MiniTrekkers from SpecFive, in Spec5 Green. USB in, already speaking Meshtastic, ShortFast, and small enough that the test stayed about the file. Solid little nodes.

Try the mesh hygiene

Two Meshtastic-compatible nodes, on the same primary channel. Confirm they already chat in the stock Meshtastic app. That chat is the mesh. MeshData only rides it.

A first node starts at Meshtastic.

When those two already talk, ask for early access to the web UI and put MeshData in the subject. The test to run is the small one: a short file, polite gaps, a picture only if you have already decided the channel can spare it.

macOS and iOS apps coming soon.