Did you manage to get it working? Have you done anything fun with it?
Setting it up was mostly easy. I had some issues understanding the logic of the app for the phone. It asks to connect to the meshtastic via bluetooth, but I already did outside of the app, which doesn't work. So you need to select the meshtastic from inside the app.
Once you are in the app you can update the meshtastic via the app. The screens I soldered on to them also work properly, you also need them to get the bluetooth code to connect, else you have to retrieve it via a serial connection and terminal. You need to do this pairing each time the unit was powered off.
I also got higher gain antenna's. I had one antenna inside the house, behind a window in the attic (I couldn't mount it outside, so it's not ideal). I carried the other outside with a battery-pack and same antenna. The range was very poor, roughly 25 meters or so.
So I still want to do a test with a proper line-of-sight connection but I need to do this in a different location. Or find a way to mount the antenna on my roof, which also needs to be weather proof.
The batteries didn't arrive yet, they should arrive soon. Currently I just power them via USB. The meshtastic came in a hard plastic box, so I drilled a hole in the side to mount the antenna cable, so the meshtastic itself is more weather proof. This setup doesn't work properly yet as the box still needs to be open for the USB-cable.
The meshtastic are 433MHz btw. which hopefully provide a better range and configured for very long range. The 928MHz version has more power to send which compensates the range advantage of the 433MHz model. My other ttgo boards are 928MHz, so they aren't compatible.
It's fun to send messages and see them pop-up on the screen. I hoped I could send them over a longer distance, so I could have a bunch of them in the area. I'll see if I missed something in my future tests which causes the short range.