Openmanet Wi-Fi Halow Open-Source Project for Raspberry Pi–based Manet Radios
Postedabout 2 months agoActiveabout 2 months ago
openmanet.netTechstory
calmmixed
Debate
60/100
Wi-Fi HalowManetMesh NetworkingRaspberry Pi
Key topics
Wi-Fi Halow
Manet
Mesh Networking
Raspberry Pi
The OpenMANET project offers an open-source Wi-Fi HaLow solution for Raspberry Pi-based MANET radios, sparking discussion on its potential applications and limitations.
Snapshot generated from the HN discussion
Discussion Activity
Very active discussionFirst comment
17m
Peak period
28
0-12h
Avg / period
10
Comment distribution40 data points
Loading chart...
Based on 40 loaded comments
Key moments
- 01Story posted
Nov 13, 2025 at 4:18 PM EST
about 2 months ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Nov 13, 2025 at 4:35 PM EST
17m after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
28 comments in 0-12h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Nov 18, 2025 at 4:29 PM EST
about 2 months ago
Step 04
Generating AI Summary...
Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns
ID: 45920677Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 2:24:16 PM
Want the full context?
Jump to the original sources
Read the primary article or dive into the live Hacker News thread when you're ready.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_Team_Awareness_Kit
ATAK is not necessarily the most intuitive UI, but it's crazy powerful for doing basically anything outdoors.
I understand some hams run a meshtastic repeater primarily to convince meshtastic users to become hams.
But yes, it can't realistically be compared to something like a "real" MANET system with $10k radios that can do something like 100mbps data rates. It is dramatically more accessible and deployable though.
However MeshCore makes one fundamental choice which is severely limiting. It uses a single LoRa discriminator and channel for all nodes. That said, LoRa limitations pretty much force this choice.
This, limits a typical network (3 repeaters) to about 500 messages/hour. The throughput scales inversely by how many repeaters you can hear.
The code does try to adjust down the TX power of a repeater in repeater-dense networks, which probably helps keep throughput consistent for a while.
For these things to work at scale they either need something other than LoRa (which is quite novel, but limited) or they need to figure out how to use LoRa in a way which allows for more channelization.
Until then, the “one transmission at a time on the air” in these very low baud networks is severely limiting.
Semtech announced recently that their new chips will be able to decode all spread factors on a specific bandwidth and center.
That being said, that would allow new LoRa nodes being capable of listening on effectively 8 different channels (that dont conflict) and transmitting on 1.
HaLow has lots more bandwidth, 433Mbps max, which allows for proper networking. It can bridge to other networks. But the practical range is only 1km. Also, the radios are expensive while LoRa is cheap.
But yes, 11s Mesh also works. Let us know on the forum (https://community.morsemicro.com/) or via github (https://github.com/MorseMicro/) if you're having issues. Err, I work for Morse in case that wasn't clear.
Airsoft?! Huh?
I've long imagined that a content centric mesh network approach would be a better starting point than what we've built up currently, but it seems like such a deep and mysterious subject and I have no idea where to even begin to get started.
If you're talking about fast and low latency connection then look into existing meshes, almost every popular mesh has some sort of paper describing how it works.
This device however - an entire Raspberry Pi + hat for a router to do..? ... seems like a solution in search of a problem to solve.
2 more comments available on Hacker News