Meshtastic Map

A map of all Meshtastic nodes heard via MQTT.

How does it work?

• An mqtt client is persistently connected to mqtt.meshtastic.org and subscribed to the # topic.
• All messages received are attempted to be decoded as ServiceEnvelope packets.
• If a packet is encrypted, it attempts to decrypt it with the default AQ== key.
• If a packet can't be decoded as a ServiceEnvelope, it is ignored.
• NODEINFO_APP packets add a node to the database.
• POSITION_APP packets update the position of a node in the database.
• NEIGHBORINFO_APP packets log neighbours heard by a node to the database.
• TELEMETRY_APP packets update battery and voltage metrics for a node in the database.
• TRACEROUTE_APP packets log all trace routes performed by a node to the database.
• MAP_REPORT_APP packets are stored in the database, but are not widely adopted, so are not used yet.
• The database is a MySQL server, and a nodejs express server is running an API to serve data to the map interface.

Features

• Connects to mqtt.meshtastic.org to collect nodes and metrics.
• Shows nodes on the map if they have reported a valid position.
• Hover over nodes on the map to see basic information and a preview image.
• Click nodes on the map to show a sidebar with more info such as graphs of historical telemetry.
• Ability to share a direct link to a node. The map will auto navigate to it.
• Ability to search for a node by ID and Hex ID. The map will auto navigate to it.
• Device list. To see which hardware models are most popular.
• Mobile optimised layout.

Beta Features

• "Neighbours" map layer. Shows blue connection lines between nodes that heard the other node.
  • This information is taken from the NEIGHBORINFO_APP, but I feel like some of the neighbours weren't heard?? Maybe I am wrong.

Planned Features

• Login/Register to manually add nodes to the map, and manage their details.
• Collect all ServiceEnvelope packets and provide a UI to filter and view them.
• Real-Time message UI to view TEXT_MESSAGE_APP packets as they come in.
• Map Filters
  • Filter out "Neighbours" based on max distance setting. Eg no greater than 200km.
  • Filter by Hardware Model
  • Filter by Frequency (we don't have this information yet)
  • Filter by Last Updated (ie, only show nodes heard in the last 1hr, 24hr, etc)

Ideas

• Maybe a way to "claim" nodes, by sending a custom message from the node.
  • Set other information, such as frequency, antenna info.
  • Could allow you to upload your own photos of the node to show on the map.

TODO

• dedupe packets to prevent spamming database

• track gateway id and channel for packets

• show frequency

• welcome modal

• not affiliated with meshtastic info

• donate link

• login/register to add nodes to the map manually

  • need to prevent spam
  • captcha for reg
  • limit how many nodes can be added from an account

• show connection lines between nodes and the neighbours they have heard directly

• ui to view realtime events from specific nodes

• ui to view text messages log

• store x days worth of historical logs

• be able to go back in time and see how the mesh evolved

References

• https://meshtastic.org/docs/software/integrations/mqtt/
• https://buf.build/meshtastic/protobufs/docs/main:meshtastic