Best Practices

Best Practices

  1. Mesh communication will work best with as few obstacles between devices as possible.  Vegetation like trees will reduce the range a little.  Structures like houses and buildings will reduce it a little more.  Terrain like ridges and hills will reduce it the most. 
  2. Range is significantly increased when the device is elevated off the ground.  If both devices communicating are elevated, range will increase even more. 
  3. On a job site, or other group communication environment, optimal communication will occur when one device is elevated off the ground at a central location.  That device will be able to relay messages to and from other devices that may not be reached directly.
  4. Keep the Mesh device out and open to radio transmission instead of buried in pockets, bags, or vehicles.
  5. The battery will drain faster when Mesh is turned on, so keep it off when you’re not using the Mesh feature.
  6. Elaborate Mesh network communication happens at all times.  Each device that receives a message will relay it on to other devices, which will relay it on to other devices.  The time required to send and receive messages increases when there are more devices in the mesh network.  We recommend forming mesh networks with 8 or fewer devices.  Shorter Mesh messages send faster than longer messages, so the more concise, the better.
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