Meshtastic radios are designed to send messages where there is no internet or cell phone service – like on a remote mountain trail, or underground subway train, on open water, extensive farm fields or travelling in another country. It is even possible to get basic internet based information from the internet, if one of the radio nodes is connected to the internet using the radio’s MQTT option.
This article shows some interesting use cases for an AI powered “Chat bot”, that can provide basic simple text information as long as there is a MQTT link configured correctly in the meshtastic chain of radios. Much of this is very experimental at the present time, but its evolving quickly with a lot of open source volunteers working towards perfecting these concepts. This approach can also be viable in rural areas if there are spots with the old fashioned low speed cell phone coverage like GSM or Lte where small amounts of data can be sent.
- Weather: Since weather can change quickly, it can be important to know the current weather conditions and near future forecast where ever you are located.
- Tides: Those who spend time on ocean water for fishing or boating need to know when the high and low tides are for their area.
- Sunset / sunrise times: It can suddenly be important to know when the sun will set, if you are walking on a trail and encounter a problem, or even a flat tire in a remote stretch of highway.
- Check in / Check out: If a group is travelling together either on a trail, or in a roadway convoy, it can be useful if each member of the party check’s in, and out as they pass certain milestones, so the others will know their status, or even notify your partner if you will be home late for dinner…
Here are some example features that I have used experimentally in the CanadaVerse Meshtastic network, using 3 different bot nodes.
To obtain this weather information, just send the message Wx to the chatbot node as per below:
Alternatively, if you simply send the message “cmd” (command) then it will give you a list of the commands it understands:
Bot0 and 2 commands
ping, bbshelp, bbslist, checkin, checkout, games, hfcond, joke, moon, motd, readnews, satpass, sitrep, solar, sun, sysinfo, tide, whereami, whoami, wiki:, wx, WXC
Sun
SunRise: Sun 05 04:17am
Set: Sun 05 03:49pm
Checkin
Checked✅In: 902A
Checkout
Checked⌛️Out: 902A duration 00:00:33
Amateur Ham radio operators
who need to have quick access to various sky conditions.
Hfcond – High frequency conditions, Amateur Ham radio
d80m-40m=Poor
d30m-20m=Fair
d17m-15m=Fair
d12m-10m=Fair
n80m-40m=Fair
n30m-20m=Fair
n17m-15m=Fair
n12m-10m=Poor
Solar
Normal X-ray Background
A-Index: 30
K-Index: 4
Sunspots: 137
X-Ray Flux: C2.1
Solar Flux: 170
Signal Noise: S3-S4
Moon
MoonRise:Sat 04 02:42pm
Set:Sun 05 02:11am
Phase:Waxing Gibbous @:90.58%
FullMoon:Mon Oct 06 09:47pm
NewMoon:Tue Oct 21 06:25am
Satpass – Next time the Satellite passes
Provide NORAD# example use:🛰️satpass 25544,33591
satpass 25544,33591
SPACE STATION has no upcoming passes
NOAA 19 has no upcoming passes
Other random commands:
Readnews
no new news is good news!
Ping – or Ping @username
🏓PONG
1 hops
Sitrep – Site Report of requesting node.
Last Heard
902A SNR:None
SKY SNR:None
MN4 SNR:None
LastSeen
!d8e3266a, 50s ago
ST4, 2m ago
902A, 0s ago
!ddf67f4e, 7m ago
🔋, 7m ago
Joke
I knew i shouldn’t have ate that seafood. Because now i’m feeling a little… Eel
Motd – Message of the day
MOTD: Thanks for using MeshBOT! Have a good day!
Sysinfo – system information, as bot sees
Channel Utilization percentage is how busy the bot’s channel is. Total Nodes and Online are good metrics for the potential reach of the bot.
📊Int:1 numPacketsRx:3913 numPacketsRxErr:0 numPacketsTx:21 numPacketsTxErr:0 ChUtil%:30.1 AirTx%:0.2 totalNodes:236 Online:180 Uptime:2h Volt:4.4 🤖👀455
Whereami
Receiving node’s general location usually within a few km.
Road: Thomas Raddall Drive, City: Halifax, State: Nova Scotia, Zip: B3S 1K3, County: Halifax County, Country: Canada, Grid: FN84ep
Whoami
You are 3121395248 AKA vanGO_902A yesRetired.com AKA, 902A AKA, !ba0cb630
wiki: travelling gnome
(General AI type query, with response split into small chunks)
The travelling gnome or roaming gnome is a garden gnome lawn ornament brought on a trip and photographed in front of famous landmarks. The practice is called
gnoming. Some instances have become national and international news stories, where people have stolen a garden gnome from a garden, and then sent the owner
photos of the gnome for a period of time as a practical joke, before returning it.
Bot8 (general queries, but slow replies – 30+ sec)
MeshBot, here for you like a friend who is not. Try sending: ping @foo or, CMD? for more
Ask: tide in Halifax
🌊 Halifax, Nova Scotia has moderate tides. The average tidal range is 12-15 meters (40-49 ft). High tide occurs around 1:30 PM, and low tide around 8:30 AM.
Bulletin Board System
Not sure how useful this will be, but creative minds may resolve that.
Bbslist
Msg #1 Welcome to meshBBS
Msg #2 Brilliant
Msg #3 tide parameter?
Bbsread #1
Msg #1
Msg Body: Welcome to the BBS, please post a message!
BBS Commands:
‘bbslist’
‘bbspost $subject #message’
‘bbsread #’
‘bbsdelete #’
‘cmd’
Example post
Bbspost $tide parameter #how do I enter a tide location parameter for Halifax
🛰️ Purpose of Check-In/Checkout in Meshtastic AI Bots
(Note this paragraph was created using AI)
• 🧭 Location Awareness & Safety Monitoring• Users can check in when they arrive at a location or begin an activity (e.g., hiking, field ops).
• They check out when leaving or completing the task.
• This helps others on the mesh know who is active, where, and when—especially useful in remote or off-grid scenarios.
• 📋 Logging & Accountability• The bot can log timestamps and node IDs for each check-in/checkout event.
• Useful for emergency response, group coordination, or historical tracking.
• 📡 Broadcast Status Updates• Check-ins can trigger broadcast messages like “Rob has checked in at Basecamp” or “Node 23 checked out from Zone B.”
• These updates improve situational awareness across the mesh.
• 🔔 Alerts for Missing Checkouts• If someone checks in but doesn’t check out after a set time, the bot can send reminders or alerts.
• This is especially valuable for safety in wilderness or disaster zones.
• 🛠️ Integration with Other Features• Can be tied to emergency alerts, scheduled tasks, or AI queries (e.g., “Who’s still checked in at Site Alpha?”).
Conclusion
Many fascinating projects are evolving out of the Meshtastic and Meshcore radio projects.
To try it yourself, you need to be able to “see” the node with your radio (e.g. in Alberta WYK0, WYK2, WYK8) or use MQTT to see the node in CanadaVerse network msh/CA on server mqtt.mt.gt , then send a “direct message” to that node with “cmd” as the only 3 letters.
Note: Turning on the MQTT option, will likely increase the number of nodes that you see on your radio. You can manage this within the Nodes List by selecting only via Lora which filters out the MQTT nodes. Or alternatively you can simply turn off “Enabled”, in the MQTT config settings.
Note: This article was created by a human not using AI, except the one noted section.
Another related article is here: Mesh Radio – Emergency preparedness, for when no mobile phone service is available
