Flood / Broadcast ping? Group chat awareness? Pinging relays?

Product feedback & support
1

How about having a way to ping out to identify what nodes (if any) are in the area? Like a broadcast of some type asking all units to respond so you can see if any mesh units are nearby.

What about for private groups? I’d like to be able to do this with my family. To know they are all within range somehow. Then, if I send a group message I’d want to see who got it and who didn’t. Not sure if it already does this?

I’d also like to be able to ping a relay that belongs to me to verify it is still answering and maybe have it respond with how much battery is left?

Anyway, a few ideas.

Fred

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2

IDing GTMs in your area is a somewhat fraught subject. If you’ve opted in, OK, in fact there are settings that allow you to specify how responsive you want to be to such inquiries. Not sure if this applies to Shout broadcasts, which do not relay and are not encrypted, for instance. GoTenna’s design and system philosophy leans towards wanting users to have choice in this matter, so I really don’t see a “Reveal All” feature coming down the pike, when the selective choices that better fit this approach are already in the user interface.

For private groups, I believe you get that sort of individual alerting to confirmation of group messages if you get the modestly priced goTenna Plus upgrade.

Keep in mind that goTenna is also hard at work on a major firmware update for Mesh. If you look back here, you’ll see discussions of various features to improve management of relays which may see some attention once the next gen firmware is released. Monitoring of battery status is right at the top of that list.

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3

I agree. We need those features.

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4

I hear ya on the privacy issue. If I create a group for my family of four though I would like to be able to see awareness / status of my own devices at a minimum. I like your idea of revealing publicly as an option for those who want or don’t want to do it.

if I also setup a relay (which I plan to do) I want to be able to check it’s status without having to connect or pair to it. Perhaps a customized status ping request that has it spit back device status such as battery, uptime, and maybe even number of messages relayed. It would be nice.

5

That functionality for iOS devices can be found in the Mesh Developers Tool Kit https://community.gotennamesh.com/t/ios-toolkit-app/1978, available in the App store with the thread I just referenced here describing it’s several features. Among them is mapping that can track the goTenna Meshes of all those participating.

6

Sounds like a few of your asks echo the conversation here. We’re certainly looking into what we can do to create remote relay node management.

I like the idea of a Shout-esque ping, especially if it’s opt-in only.

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