beta

Squatch Mesh for the T-Deck

For the LilyGo T-Deck and T-Deck Plus. Made for the touchscreen: a home screen of your newest chats and big buttons, swipe up to unlock, tap to answer. The keyboard and trackball work everywhere too. Version 1.2.2-beta3.

Beta. It runs on real hardware (a T-Deck Plus since September 2026), but only a few T-Decks have had it so far. If something is wrong it will not harm the T-Deck: you can always flash Meshtastic or MeshCore back (how). Not for the T-Lora Pager — that is the normal installer.

Before you flash

Coming from MeshCore

Your identity (your keys), contacts, channels and radio settings should come across by themselves: the first start reads them out of MeshCore's storage before setting up its own. That hasn't been tried on a real T-Deck yet, so make a backup first as well: in the MeshCore app, export the config, copy the .json to the SD card's top folder, rename it meshcore-backup.json and leave the card in. Keep that file private.

Coming from Meshtastic

Meshtastic keys can't be carried over, so the T-Deck starts with a new identity. Write down anything you want to keep (channel names and keys, your node name) first. Flashing Meshtastic back later sets it up fresh.

Flash the T-Deck

Switch it on, plug it in, press start

Use a USB-C cable that carries data. It checks what's on the T-Deck, installs or updates, and waits for it to start. About two minutes. Chrome or Edge on a Mac, Windows or Linux computer; no drivers needed.

Your browser will ask which USB device to use — pick the one named USB JTAG/serial debug unit (on a Mac, cu.usbmodem…).

No port shows up, or it won't connect

  1. Try another cable: charge-only cables are the usual reason.
  2. Put it in download mode: switch the T-Deck off, hold the trackball down, switch it on, let go. The screen stays dark; that's expected.
  3. Press start again. After the flash, switch it off and on to start the new firmware.
  4. If it says this isn't a T-Deck but you know it is, press install anyway.

After it starts

  1. The first start sets up storage: give it a minute.
  2. Swipe up on the lock screen to unlock, or click the trackball.
  3. Tools › hardware check shows every part with a dot: touch, roll, click and type until they go green.
  4. Screen upside down, ball backwards, odd colours? Settings › Display › screen + touch (the trackball works there even if touch doesn't).

Updates

Put the T-Deck on Wi-Fi once (Settings › Wi-Fi) and it updates itself: it looks every few hours and installs a new version while it's idle, keeping your contacts and settings, then says so. Settings › System › install updates by itself turns that off. Pressing start on this page updates it too, any time.

Going back

Both of these erase the T-Deck and install fresh, from Chrome, with the T-Deck in download mode if they can't connect: Meshtastic web flasher (pick T-Deck) · MeshCore web flasher (pick LilyGo T-Deck, Companion).

Other ways to flash

One file with everything, written at address 0x0: squatch-mesh-tdeck-1.2.2-beta3-full.bin. Use it with Espressif's web flasher (address 0x0, don't erase first), or esptool:

esptool.py --chip esp32s3 write_flash 0x0 squatch-mesh-tdeck-1.2.2-beta3-full.bin

Tell us how it went

Good or bad, it helps: the help page or [email protected]. A photo of the hardware check screen says most of it. If it didn't start, open Show the details above and paste what's there.