Host an Observer

What hardware works

The observer firmware runs on ESP32 radios with Wi-Fi, such as the Heltec V3 and V4, LilyGo T-Beam and T3 S3, RAK 3112, Station G2 and G3, and Xiao S3. Our own observers run on a Heltec V4 and a Heltec V3. The observer flasher at observer.gessaman.com lists every supported board. Radios without Wi-Fi (like the T1000-E or the RAK4631) can't be observers. Give it steady power and a good Wi-Fi signal, and mount it as high as you can, like a repeater.

What it is and how to connect it

An observer is a repeater with Wi-Fi that uploads what it hears to an MQTT server (a message relay that maps and analyzers read from). Flash observer firmware from https://observer.gessaman.com, then send the admin command:

get public.key

Give the result to the network admin so your observer shows up by name. Then set:

set radio 910.525,62.5,7,8
set name MSCM-Observer-<area>
set mqtt.iata GPT
set wifi.ssid <your wifi>
set wifi.pwd <your wifi password>
set mqtt1.preset custom
set mqtt1.server mqtt.mscoastmesh.org
set mqtt1.port 1883
set mqtt2.preset analyzer-us
reboot

Server mqtt.mscoastmesh.org, port 1883, TLS off. No username or password: leave both blank. (If you set a login earlier, it does no harm: the broker accepts any username and password.)

Note: this firmware ships with slot 1 pointed at the national LetsMesh US analyzer and slot 2 at LetsMesh EU. The commands above point slot 1 (custom) at our broker and switch slot 2 to the LetsMesh US analyzer (analyzer-us), so each observer feeds us and also contributes to the national view. LetsMesh doesn't offer a public API to pull data back out. Command syntax per the observer firmware's MQTT docs.

With set mqtt.iata GPT, your observer publishes under meshcore/GPT/<its public key>/… (status, packets, raw), which is what our broker, map and analyzers listen to.

See it on the map

Once it's online, your observer shows up on the live map and in our network analyzers. Questions? Ask on Discord.