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MCTerm

MeshCore · LoRa · off-grid

When the grid goes dark, your messages don't.

MCTerm turns a LoRa handheld into a complete off-grid messenger. Chats, direct messages, a map and every setting run on the radio itself — no phone, no internet, no cell towers, no accounts. Just radio.

NO INTERNET NO SIM E2E DMs MULTI-HOP WebUI AUTO MAP ALARM LOCK SCREEN 6 DEVICES

Get MCTerm See the WebUI Supported devices Why you need it

MCTerm v0.9.14 · MeshCore v1.17.1
Radio    869.618 MHz BW62.5 SF8 CR8   OK
Sensors  BME280 @0x76                 OK
Storage  SD card                      OK
Contacts 42 loaded
WiFi     AP 192.168.4.1 · WebUI on
Ready. Listening on the mesh_

LilyGO T-Deck Plus running MCTerm: contact list with repeaters, badges and hop counts — MCTerm on a LilyGO T-Deck Plus — real device, real mesh.

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More than a messenger

Everything below is built in — no add-ons, no cloud. Four things people don't expect from a LoRa radio:

WebUIFull WebUI in your browserOpen http://IP-of-device or http://device-name.local (mDNS). Messages, contacts, map and every setting — on phone, tablet or laptop. MAPAutomatic map downloaderOn WiFi, missing tiles are fetched while you pan and cached to SD or flash. Offline next time. LOCKLock screenAutolock with timer and your own picture. The mesh keeps receiving while locked. ALARMPager alarmA trigger word in a DM or channel sounds a siren, pops up and blinks until you touch the screen.

The WebUI — your radio in any browser

Connect to the device's WiFi (or let it join your router), type its IP address or device-name.local, log in with the 6-digit BLE PIN — done. These are real screenshots of the WebUI on a phone:

MCTerm WebUI login screen with user and BLE PIN, opened at bmksindicatorpro.local — Login with your device PIN.

WebUI contacts list with repeater, user and favourite badges — Contacts, search, favourites.

WebUI channel list with unread counters — Channels with unread counters.

WebUI map with mesh nodes by type on OpenStreetMap tiles — Live map with every node.

WebUI sensors page with live graphs of temperature, humidity, CO2 and VOC — Live sensor graphs and calibration.

WebUI Management grid with Device, Radio, Network, Location and Maintenance tiles — All settings, same as on the device.

Same settings and same features as on the device — change one, the other follows live.

Runs on real hardware

One firmware family, five more screens besides the T-Deck Plus — same tabs, same badges, same features. Every photo below is a real device running MCTerm:

MCTerm running on the Seeed SenseCAP Indicator: map view on the sensecap indicator — **Seeed SenseCAP Indicator**
480×480 touch · ESP32-S3 + RP2040

MCTerm running on the Heltec V4 TFT Extended: contacts on the heltec v4 extended — **Heltec V4 TFT Extended**
touch TFT · GPS with expansion kit

MCTerm running on the Elecrow CrowPanel Advanced 7 — **Elecrow CrowPanel Advanced 7" (ESP32-P4)**
1024×600 touch

MCTerm running on the Elecrow CrowPanel 3.5 — **Elecrow CrowPanel 3.5" (ESP32)**
480×320 touch

MCTerm running on the LilyGO T-Display P4: contacts on the lilygo t-display p4 — **LilyGO T-Display P4**
large touch display · preview

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Why 6/6

Your phone needs a cell tower. A cell tower needs power and a backbone. When one of them fails, the chat apps go quiet. A MeshCore radio talks straight to the next radio — and MCTerm puts the whole messenger on it.

Blackout & power cuts Cells go down within hours of a blackout. The mesh doesn't use them at all. OFFGRID
Mountains & dead zones Hiking, skiing, camping, sailing — keep your group in touch without coverage. GPS
Emergency teams A network in minutes, no infrastructure. The pager alarm wakes people up. ALARM
Your neighbourhood Join the local MeshCore network. Repeaters on roofs and hills carry your messages further. RPT
Events & groups Festivals, clubs, field days: channels for everyone, DMs for the few. #
Privacy No account, no phone number, no server. Direct messages are end-to-end encrypted. E2E

How the mesh works

YOU RPT RPT FRIEND

Every message hops from radio to radio. Repeaters — often solar-powered, on rooftops and hills — pass it on. The first message floods the mesh to find a path; after that MeshCore sends it along that path directly, which keeps the channel free. MCTerm runs the unchanged MeshCore core (v1.17.1), so it talks to every MeshCore node, repeater, room server and app.

Why a screen on the radio?

Headless radioMCTerm

Works when your phone is dead or lostNOYES

Read and write on the radio itselfNOYES

Offline map on the radioNOYES

Pager siren on a trigger wordNOYES

Full setup in any browserNOYES

Still use the MeshCore appYESYES

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Msgs 6/20

Messaging the way you know it from your phone — on the radio. Tap a row.

Public channel, #hashtag channels (just type #name) and private channels with a secret key. Share a channel as QR code. Region scopes keep flood traffic in your area. Tap a #hashtag in a message to join it — or paste someone's contact/channel share link into a chat and tap it to add them, no QR scanner needed.
End-to-end encrypted with your contact's public key. A check mark appears when the delivery confirmation (ACK) comes back; if it doesn't, MCTerm retries and finds a new route — or tap Resend on the message yourself.
Log in to MeshCore room servers: shared group chats that store the history, so you catch up when you're back in range. Admins can manage rooms and repeaters over the air.
Every single emoji of Unicode 18.0 and 259 country flags are built into the firmware (Google Noto Emoji) and drawn on the screen — no ? boxes. The keyboard's EMO page has the 40 favourites; on the T-Deck press Alt+E.
One tap sends your canned text (“OK”, “Heading back”). Two reply templates fill in hops, SNR and RSSI of the message you answer — perfect for range tests.
For every message: full text, hops and path, SNR/RSSI, repeats heard, delivery state. Tap Path to draw the route on the map, or Resend to send the same text again.

MCTerm channel list: Public, #austria, #vienna, #test with unread counters and region scope badges — Channel list with unread counters and region scopes.

Sounds

SPK

Know what arrived without looking. Every sound can be switched on or off, with volume Low / Med / High and quiet hours for the night. These are the device's real tones:

Boot
New DM
New channel
Ack (delivered)

Contacts

RPTFGPS

Everyone the radio hears shows up in Contacts: users, repeaters, room servers and sensors, with hop count, last heard and distance. Search by name or key, mark favourites, sort by distance. Log in to your own repeaters over the air: status, neighbours, telemetry and a remote command line.

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Map

Tiles: OpenStreetMap

Offline firstMap tiles come from the SD card or internal flash in the standard {z}/{x}/{y}.png layout. No signal needed.
Auto-download over WiFiWhen WiFi is up, missing tiles are downloaded as you pan and saved to the cache — next time they're there offline.
Pick your mapOpenStreetMap, OSM Germany, OpenTopoMap, Humanitarian, CyclOSM — or your own tile URL. The WebUI map uses the same source.
Everyone on the mapNodes that share their position appear with their short ID. Tap to select, double-tap for details. ME jumps to you.
See the routeTap Path on any message and the map shows each hop it took.
GPS & trackingFollow-me, altitude bar, GPS time sync, and tracking: send your new position automatically every few metres you move.

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Link

Standalone is great — but sometimes you want a big screen and a real keyboard. Switch the link live, right from the device: Mgmt → WiFi → Use WiFi or Mgmt → BLE → Use BLE. Try it here (or tap WiFi / BLE in the status bar):

Browser / App ~WiFi~ MCTerm ~LoRa~ Mesh

WiFi — any browser, any app

WebUI

Open the built-in WebUI: no app, no install, no cloud. Or connect MeshCore companion apps and tools over WiFi.

Access Point: the radio makes its own hotspot — open http://192.168.4.1. Works in the middle of nowhere, up to 3 devices.
Station: the radio joins your router; use it from your laptop at home.
Profiles for home, field and office — switch in one tap.

The WebUI is the device, in your browser

http://192.168.4.1 or http://device-name.local

Same four tabs, same settings, updated live over a WebSocket. What you change in the browser changes on the device, and the other way round. Every MCTerm feature ships on the device and in the WebUI.

Screenshots

Login with your device PIN
Big map with search and message paths
Firmware upload, identity import/export, alarm, sensors, debug view
Keyboard shortcuts for fast typing on a laptop

Works with

MeshCore appAndroid · iOS · WebBLE
meshcore-cli / meshcore.jsPython and JavaScript clientsALT
Built-in WebUIAny browser, no installWiFi

Mgmt

Everything is configurable on the device — 22 settings pages, the same grid you see on the screen. Tap a tile.

Global

Your name, up to 4 identities on internal storage or 8 on SD, primary disk (internal or SD), reboot and firmware update.

Sensors & telemetry

LIVE

Plug an I2C sensor in and MCTerm finds it at boot. Readings show up as live graphs (last 96 samples), go out as telemetry to the mesh, and can be calibrated with an offset per value.

Temperature21.4 °C
Humidity48 %
CO2612 ppm
Battery4.12 V

Demo values. Supported: BME280, BME680, BMP280, AHT10/AHT20, INA219 / INA226 / INA260 / INA3221 power monitors, HC-SR04 distance, CrowTail light sensor, and the SenseCAP Indicator's built-in CO2, temperature, humidity and VOC sensors.

MCTerm Mgmt overview grid on the T-Deck Plus: GPS, Radio, Advert, Messages, Stats, Log, Tele, Sensors, Contacts — The same grid on the device.

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Get it

Devices

LilyGO T-Deck Plus320×240 · keyboard + trackballGPSSPKSD
Seeed SenseCAP Indicator480×480 touch · ESP32-S3 + RP2040CO2BUZSD
Elecrow CrowPanel 3.5"480×320 touchSD
Elecrow CrowPanel Advanced 7"1024×600 touch · ESP32-P4SD
Heltec V4 TFT Extendedtouch TFT · GPS with expansion kitGPS
LilyGO T-Display P4large touch displayPREVIEW

Install in 5 steps

1
Download the firmware file for your device. Releases
2
Open the MeshCore web flasher in Chrome or Edge: flasher.meshcore.io → Custom Firmware.
3
First install: choose a full flash erase. Later updates keep your settings.
4
SenseCAP Indicator: also flash the matching RP2040 .uf2 from the same release.
5
Antenna on, power on. The first boot takes 1–2 minutes. Set your name and your region's radio settings in Mgmt → Radio (EU/UK default: 869.618 MHz, BW 62.5, SF 8, CR 8).

! Never transmit without an antenna — it can damage the radio.

FAQ

No. MCTerm sends and receives over LoRa and you use it on the device. WiFi is optional: for the WebUI, map downloads and time sync.
Yes. MCTerm is built on the MeshCore core (v1.17.1) and talks to every MeshCore node, repeater, room server and companion app.
It depends on terrain, antenna and height. LoRa is made for long range at low power, and every repeater in between adds another hop — that's what makes a mesh.
The firmware is free. You only need one of the supported devices. If you like it, you can buy the developer a coffee.
LoRa uses licence-free ISM bands. Set the frequency and power allowed in your country and keep to the duty-cycle limit — Mgmt → Radio shows your live duty cycle.

Download MCTerm Buy me a coffee