A street map is perfect for finding a café. It is much less helpful halfway up a mountain, where what you really want is contour lines, terrain shading, and elevation to read the shape of the land around your team. By default, the map in the Meshtastic app shows streets.

That is easy to change. The Meshtastic Android app lets you add your own map layers, and the best ones for the outdoors are free, especially in Japan, where the national mapping agency publishes excellent topographic maps.

A notification sits in your status bar and will not go away. It appeared when you connected your tracker to the Meshtastic app, and swiping does nothing. Is the app stuck, draining your battery, or did you do something wrong?

None of the above. It is completely normal, and the app is just doing its job. Here is what that notification is for, and what it means for your battery.

Charge a T1000-E overnight, unplug it in the morning, and drop it in your bag. By the afternoon the battery is half gone, even though you never switched it on. Or you spot the tracker quietly awake when you were sure you had turned it off.

Several early users have asked us about this. It is not a fault, and once you know what is happening, the fix takes two seconds.

The Karida online shop is now open. You can order Giteki-certified Meshtastic devices shipped within Japan.

Karida Cloud is now open to early adopters in public beta. It is a web-based service that connects to your Meshtastic devices and helps you manage channels, configure device settings, and relay messages through the internet.

You are on a day hike. Your phone had signal at the start. An hour in, it shows nothing. Your hiking partner is somewhere ahead. You want to send a message. You cannot.

You just received your first Meshtastic device. This guide walks you through everything from opening the box to sending your first message. No technical background required.

Every year, the Kobe Boy Scouts hike from Akashi along the entire length of the Rokko Mountains to Takarazuka. They start before sunrise and finish after sunset, sometimes just in time for one of the last trains home. The kids organize the route themselves. Adult leaders join along the way but do not lead from the front.

We have been writing about Meshtastic for a few months now. Explaining what it does, where it helps, and how teams can use it. Starting in March, you will be able to buy devices directly from us.

If you have used proprietary radios or GPS devices, you probably know the feeling: the product you bought never receives another update. Sometimes not even when there are serious bugs or security issues. The manufacturer has moved on.