Living with it

Three buttons along the bottom edge, left to right:

Powered off really is off: it uses almost nothing, and it hears nothing either, so messages sent while it's off are missed. It can't turn off while USB is plugged in (the charger keeps it running), and it turns itself off properly when the battery is empty rather than running the cell flat. For flashing: hold middle (BOOT), tap left (reset), let go of middle.

A fresh install formats storage first, which takes a few minutes and only ever happens once. Then three quick questions: your radio region (the MeshCore presets, or keep what's set), your time zone (it follows daylight saving by itself), and clock and units (12 or 24 hour, miles or km). Each can be kept as it is and changed later under Settings. Give the node a name under Settings → Profile: that is how you appear to everyone else.

From 1.2.3, new releases install by themselves over Wi-Fi: it checks when Wi-Fi connects and every six hours, and puts a new official release in once the pager is idle - screen off for two minutes, charging or above 30%, no SOS or phone sync running. When it comes back it says Updated, with everything kept. Turn that off under Settings → System → install updates by itself and it asks first instead, as it used to. Check for updates in the same menu looks right away. Turning on beta updates gets you builds before they are released, which is useful if you want to help find problems and tolerable only if you do; a beta always asks before it installs.

Settings → Battery shows charge and battery health, and holds the two power features. Optimised charging learns roughly when you unplug and holds at 80% until shortly before, which is easier on the cell; it needs a few days of routine before it does anything. Battery saver switches on at 20% and turns off GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and the motion sensor (raise to wake, face down, the tilting scenes) until you are back above 80%. The man-down alarm, if it's on, keeps working. If health looks wrong on a new battery, use reset battery learning and let it do one full charge and one good discharge.

Global settings live in Settings → Notifications, including quiet hours. Any single chat can override them from its own menu, or from the menu on any message in it: all messages, @mentions only, silent, or muted. Muted chats still count as unread.

Keep a card in it. A first install formats internal storage, and the card is what brings your contacts back.

Ships with the Inland Northwest preset: 910.5250244 MHz, 62.5 kHz, SF7, CR 4/5. Any MeshCore radio settings work, so set whatever your local mesh uses. Everyone on a mesh has to agree on these or you will hear nothing.

Wi-Fi is for updates, the clock and map tiles; the mesh itself never needs it. Settings → Wi-Fi → scan + join a network. It only sees 2.4 GHz networks. When it can't join, it says why: wrong password?, not found (2.4 GHz only), no answer, weak signal? or joined, router gave no address. To fix a password, scan and join the network again. Away from your saved networks it tries less and less often (up to every 15 minutes with the screen off), so leaving Wi-Fi on doesn't drain the battery.

Roll onto a message and press: at the bottom of its menu is the route it came by, with the repeaters named where they are in your contacts. Beside the hop count (4h) is the size of the repeater ids in its path (2B); turn that off under Settings → Messages → with repeater id size.

The 12-pin header on top takes a small I2C sensor: BME280, BMP280, SHT3x, SHT4x, AHT20 or BH1750. Wire its VCC to 3.3 V (pin 2), GND (pin 1), SDA (pin 9) and SCL (pin 11). It shows up under Tools → top header and goes out with your telemetry. IO9 (pin 8) can drive an LED (through a 330 ohm resistor) or a small active 3.3 V buzzer: flash on new messages or on while unread. Leave pins 5, 6 and 7 alone: they are the radio's bus. Pin 12 has 5 V only while USB is in.

A region keeps your messages to the repeaters that carry it, instead of a plain flood. It works as in the MeshCore app. For one channel: roll onto a message in its chat and press, then region scope (or Settings → Channels); the chat's title then shows Region: name. For everything else: Settings → Radio & Mesh → default region scope, the same setting the app shows. discover regions lists the regions the repeaters in range actually carry: pick from there. A repeater drops messages for a region it doesn't carry, and names must match exactly, capitals included, so a guessed name can mean messages that go nowhere. With no region set, nothing changes.

The pager has a motion sensor built in. Raise to wake (Settings → Display, on to start with): lift it into view, out of a pocket or up off a table, and the screen comes on at the lock face. It goes dark again in 10 seconds if you don't unlock it. Quiet when face down (Settings → Notifications, off to start with): lay it flat, screen down, and messages arrive without sound, buzz or light. A pocket holds it on its edge, so it doesn't go quiet there. The man-down alarm (Tools → field → SOS beacon, off to start with): when the pager hasn't moved for 5, 10, 15 or 30 minutes, it chirps for a minute, faster towards the end, then starts the SOS countdown. Moving it or pressing any key starts the time again, and it waits while the pager is charging. Turn it off when you put the pager down for the day.

The lock screen shows the time once, in the big clock, with the date beside it; the top bar keeps its clock on every other screen. The scene leans as you tip the pager. And the sasquatch talks: shake the pager (properly, back and forth) and he says so and hops; pick it up after a while and he says hello for the time of day; he tells you when a message comes in, when you plug in the charger, when the battery runs low, and when you hold him tipped right over. He has plenty to say and won't repeat himself until he's been through it all. Turn him quiet under Settings → Display → sasquatch talks.

If the pager crashes or hits an error, it sends the developer a short report over Wi-Fi when it's idle: the version, why it restarted, where it crashed, memory and battery, its last log lines with Wi-Fi names and channel names taken out, and (from 1.2.5) the name your pager uses on the mesh, so the developer knows whose report it is. Once a day it also checks in with just its board, version and a random number, so we know how many are in use. Tools → send log to the developer sends the log on purpose, if something looks wrong. Both are on to start with; Settings → System → send problem reports turns them off. Details on the privacy page.