I would actually suggest people also get a cheap android phone to pair to the mesh unit and leave it on and charged all the time. Here’s the reason - it’s the only way to be able to “ping” the mesh unit (open a new 1/1 message to the GID and tap “ping”, and know it’s actually turned on when you want to check on it from another location. Here’s why: my gotenna overheated today sitting under a solar charger on my deck. I measured it at 129 degrees in 85 degree weather and direct sun, and the LEDs did not work and it would not connect to an already paired phone. I couldn’t test if it could still relay, had to cool it down and turn it off and on before it worked.
Second suggestion - publish the node GID on imeshyou map. This way we can ping a node and know if it’s online (if a phone is connected to it). I just did some tests and unless a phone is paired a node does not respond to pings or messages to the paired GID. The app does all the heavy lifting. When I turned the phones Bluetooth back on, the shout messages were stored but the 1/1s from a new “guest” GID were not received. But here’s the interesting part- if i used the node phone and tap and held on the contact and sent a message back- even if the guest gotenna was no longer in range, the guest could then ping and send message confirmations again - even if a phone was no longer connected to the node.
This means we can sort of play double opt in node ping games. Here’s how:
Publish GID of node (pair to your phone).
Node hunters drive near locations of nodes on map and send shout "hello node!"
Node should store all shouts (there is some limit, its high) until phone is re-paired. Hunter goes home.
Node owner pairs phone and see’s stored shout from hunter. Taps to send 1/1 message back that will fail.
Node hunter returns at a later date and sends a 1/1 ping to node- even if no phone paired- GREEN CHECKMARK. You can now drive around that node and send pings to help determine distance and send locations to the node 1/1 chat to help the owner define the radius more precisely on the imeshyou site. This should be gamefied and added to the app in the long run to help verify and test nodes and is a sort of “node geocaching” game!