Meshtastic Role Setting

Recommended Meshtastic role settings for your locations

Recommended Meshtastic Role Settings

CLIENT [default]

For most people this is the default This enables you to communicate with your node via bluetooth and your app and will re-route traffic your node picks up to others. Use if you have good aerial at good height.

Client Role Not for small portable meshtastic node with small antenna house on hill meshtastic node High up apartment meshtastic node

CLIENT_MUTE

Recommended for portable nodes walking, cars, planes and other vehicles. it will pick up nearby nodes but it will not re-route. This is important as mobile nodes in varying locations will poorly re-route mesh traffic and causes issue for others.

Client mute ideal for small portable meshtastic with node small antenna walking with meshtastic node driving with meshtastic node Flying with meshtastic node

ROUTER

Only use this if you are located at a vantage point high on a hill or apartment block with clear line of sight viewshed to far away places and should also have an optimal set-up

Misuse of this mode is causing meshtastic to NOT route messages properly

Not for small portable meshtastic node with small antenna house on hill meshtastic node Antenna high on mast tower High up apartment meshtastic node

REPEATER

Only use this if you are located at a vantage point high on a hill or apartment block with clear line of sight viewshed to far away places. You should also have an optimal set-up

Used for extending coverage. This will not show up on node lists. Use at height

Not for small portable meshtastic node with small antenna house on hill meshtastic node Antenna high on mast tower High up apartment meshtastic node

CLIENT HIDDEN

This is a stealth mode. e.g. for nodes hidden in a tree

TRACKER

Broadcasts GPS position packets as priority, use as a tracker

ROUTER_LATE

New Role introduced in Firmware 2.5.18 December 2024 and re-introduced in 2.5.20 Jan-2025 This role will always rebroadcast packets, but will do so after all other modes. Intended for router nodes that are there to provide additional coverage in areas not already covered by other routers, or to bridge around problematic terrain, but should not be given priority over other routers in order to avoid unnecessarily consuming hops (basically the "we need this thing to always rebroadcast, but it isn't a 'real' high site" scenario). By default, this role will rebroadcast during the normal client window. However, if another node is overheard rebroadcasting the packet, then it will be moved to a second window after the normal client one, with the same timing behaviour.

ROUTER_CLIENT [Depreciated July-2024]

This role was deprecated because it's frequent misuse in non-strategically placed roles, leading to increased rebroadcast packet collisions as well as premature hop consumption decreasing the effective range of a mesh.

In some larger public meshes, it has been reported that almost half of the nodes were configured as ROUTER_CLIENT and ROUTER.

Going forward, the mixed ROUTER_CLIENT role will be retired and simply behave as the CLIENT role.

Alternatively, users can decide to use the ROUTER role if their node does indeed fall into the strategically placed criteria, such as on top of a mountain, skyscraper, or any other location with a significant line of sight viewshed advantage.

Examples of non-strategically placed nodes would be any mobile node, a car node, a home node on a mast, or really any node without significant elevation difference providing advantage to the mesh's reach.

Nodes under those placement conditions should not be configured as ROUTER or REPEATER role.

GROUP / TEAM EXERCISE (HUNTING, EXPLORATION ETC.)

If you have a group of you out in the wilderness on exercise and wish to keep in contact via Meshtastic nodes. I would suggest you try to have one Base station router or repeater node set-up in a vantage point. This would ideally by higher up than the terrain you are exploring. e.g. back at your parked Vehicle ideally an Antenna on a pole or on top of the roof Then have your individual team members with nodes set to client. This would give you the best routing of messages.

This setup would also work well if you were for instance a farmer with a lot of land, you could have a node or nodes in high vantage positions set as router or repeater then several other nodes set as client

DETAILED MESHTASTIC ROLE TABLE

Device Role BLE WiFi Serial Screen Enabled Power Consumed Retransmit Prioritized Routing Visible in Nodes List
CLIENT Yes Yes Regular Yes No Yes
CLIENT_MUTE πŸšΆπŸš— ✈️ Yes Yes Lowest No No Yes
CLIENT_HIDDEN Yes Yes Lowest Local Only No No
TRACKER Yes No Regular / Low Awake Only No Yes
LOST_AND_FOUND Yes No Regular Yes No Yes
SENSOR Yes No Regular / Low Awake Only No Yes
TAK Yes Optional Regular Yes No Yes
TAK_TRACKER Yes Optional Regular Yes No Yes
ROUTER πŸ—Ό α¨’ No No High Yes Yes Yes
REPEATER πŸ—Ό α¨’ Yes No High Yes Yes No
ROUTER_LATE Yes Yes High Yes No Yes

Join the Local Meshtastic Community

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