Tools screen

Tools Screen

Overview

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The Tools screen is a hub for GPS trail recording, nearby node browsing, ringtone editing, auto-reply bot, and auto-advert. Navigate the tool list with UP/DOWN and press Enter to open a tool.

Nearby Nodes

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Browse nodes that have recently advertised on the mesh. Filter by category with LEFT/RIGHT:

Filter	Shows
Fav	Upstream-starred contacts only
ALL	All known nodes
Comp	Companion (chat) nodes
Rpt	Repeaters
Room	Room servers
Snsr	Sensors

Select a node to see its coordinates, distance, bearing with cardinal direction, type, and last-heard time.

From the list view, Hold Enter opens the context menu, where Discover nearby sends a live NODE_DISCOVER_REQ scan.

From either node detail view, Hold Enter opens the Ping popup:

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Use Enter on the popup’s Ping row to send a direct mesh ping to that node. The popup then shows the RTT and SNR values on the next lines, and can be used again immediately for another ping.

[!TIP] Combined with Auto-Advert on the other device, Nearby Nodes becomes a passive location tracker — as long as the tracked device periodically broadcasts its GPS position, you can see its current distance and bearing without any manual interaction on either end.

Active Discovery

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Sends a NODE_DISCOVER_REQ ping. Repeaters, sensors and room servers within zero-hop range respond immediately with name, type and signal data.

Results show as 2-line cards: node name + type, then RSSI / SNR / remote SNR.

UP/DOWN — navigate results
Enter — open full-screen detail (public key, signal data, contact status)
Hold Enter — rescan
Hold Enter in full-screen detail — open the Ping popup for the selected node
Cancel / Back — return to nearby list

GPS Trail

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Records your route in a RAM ring buffer (up to 512 points, sampled every 1 s). Tracking runs in the background — a blinking G appears in the status bar. The trail survives display auto-off but is lost on reboot unless saved to flash first.

Cycle views with LEFT / RIGHT:

View	Content
Summary	Distance, elapsed time, avg speed or pace, point count, tracking status
Map	Auto-fit dot-and-line plot with cos(lat) aspect correction; segment breaks marked; north arrow; square scale grid fitted to the map frame (toggle under Hold Enter → Settings → Grid, Map view only). Your current GPS position and all waypoints are always drawn — even with no trail recording — so the map is useful standalone
List	Per-point rows showing local time (HH:MM) and delta distance from the previous point; segment-start rows show `start`; scroll with UP/DOWN

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Hold Enter opens the action menu. It is two-level — a short main menu, plus Trail file… and Settings… submenus. Cancel/Back in a submenu returns to the main menu.

Main menu:

Item	Action
Start / Stop tracking	Begin or end a recording session
Mark here	Drop a waypoint at the current GPS fix (see below)
Waypoints…	Open the waypoint list / navigation / add-by-coords
Trail file…	Open the file submenu (below)
Settings…	Open the settings submenu (below)

Trail file… (only the operations that apply right now appear):

Item	Action
Save trail	Write RAM ring to flash (`/trail`)
Load trail	Restore flash trail into RAM
Export (live)	Stream live RAM trail as GPX 1.1 over USB Serial
Export (saved)	Stream saved flash trail as GPX 1.1 over USB Serial
Reset trail	Clear RAM ring and elapsed time

Settings… (values cycle with LEFT/RIGHT or Enter; shown only where they apply):

Item	Available	Action
Min dist	always	Sample gate, 4 levels — metric: 5/10/25/100 m, imperial: 15/30/75/300 ft
Readout	Summary view	Summary shows Speed or Pace (in the global unit system)
Grid	Map view	Toggle scale grid on the map

(Trail file… appears only when a live or saved trail exists. Mark here needs a GPS fix; Waypoints is always available.)

Waypoints

A waypoint is a saved spot — your car, camp, a water source — that you can navigate back to later. Waypoints are independent of the trail: they live in their own flash file (/waypoints), survive a reboot, and are not cleared by Reset trail. Up to 16 can be stored — the Waypoints list header shows how many are in use (e.g. WAYPOINTS 3/16).

Dropping a waypoint — Hold Enter → Mark here. This captures the current GPS fix and opens the on-screen keyboard for a short label (up to 11 characters — e.g. CAR, CAMP, H2O). Leaving it blank auto-names it WP1, WP2, … Marking works whether or not the trail is being recorded; it needs a GPS fix (otherwise it reports No GPS fix).

Adding by coordinates — open Hold Enter → Waypoints and select the + Add by coords row (always the last entry in the list). This creates a waypoint without being there — no GPS fix required (handy for a meeting point or a spot read off a map). It opens a small form with three editable rows plus Save:

Lat / Lon — Enter opens the keyboard to type the value in decimal degrees (magnitude only; the keyboard has no minus sign), and LEFT/RIGHT toggles the hemisphere — N/S for latitude, E/W for longitude.
Label — Enter to type a name (blank → auto WP<n>).
Save — validates the range and stores the waypoint. Missing or out-of-range values report a brief error.

On the map — saved waypoints show on the Trail Map view as a hollow diamond with the label's first two characters beside it (enough to tell nearby waypoints apart). Waypoints and your current GPS position are drawn continuously — even with no trail recording in progress — so the Map view doubles as a live "you + your marks" view, not just a recorded-track plot. With no trail, the view auto-fits to your waypoints and position. While a trail exists, the view frames the recorded route instead, and any waypoint that falls outside it is clamped to the nearest map edge — a distant mark can't blow up the scale and squash the trail.

Navigating — Hold Enter → Waypoints opens the list (each row shows the label and live distance). The list always begins with a synthetic Trail start row whenever a trail exists, so you can backtrack to where you began without having marked it. Select a row and press Enter to open the navigation view:

   CAMP            ← target label
   1.4 km          ← distance to target
   To:  145° SE    ← absolute bearing to the target
   Hdg: 090° E     ← your current course over ground (-- when stationary)

There is no magnetometer, so the screen shows two absolute bearings and you compare them: target at 145°, travelling at 90° → bear right. The Hdg line is derived from GPS movement (see Compass) and reads -- until you move.

Managing — Hold Enter on a waypoint row offers Rename / Delete / Send (the Trail start row is navigate-only). Delete removes one at a time; there is no bulk clear.

Sharing — Send hands the waypoint to the Messages screen: pick a contact or channel, and the message is pre-filled as [WAY]<lat>,<lon> <label> (e.g. [WAY]37.42123,-122.08456 CAR) for you to confirm or edit before sending. On the receiving device, opening that message and Hold Enter → Navigate / Save waypoint turns it back into a navigable point (see Messages › Fullscreen message view). The format is plain text, so it stays readable on other firmware and the phone app.

Downloading GPX

Easiest — Solo GPX Downloader (browser-based, no install):

Open the link in Chrome or Edge (Web Serial API required).
Click Connect device and select the USB serial port.
On the device: Tools › Trail → Hold Enter → Export (live) or Export (saved).
The browser captures the stream automatically — set a filename and click Download.

Script — tools/trail_export.py (auto-detects the port, captures from <?xml to </gpx>, writes a timestamped file under tools/gpx/):

uv run tools/trail_export.py

Then on the device: Tools › Trail → Hold Enter → Export (live) or Export (saved).

Manual fallback — open a serial terminal at 115200 baud and capture the stream by hand:

macOS/Linux — cat /dev/tty.usbmodem* > track.gpx (stop with Ctrl-C after the dump finishes)
Windows — PuTTY (Serial, 115200) or Arduino IDE Serial Monitor with no line ending; copy the text from <?xml to </gpx> into a .gpx file

Saved waypoints are included in the export as GPX <wpt> elements (with their label as <name>), alongside the track — so they show as pins in OsmAnd, Garmin BaseCamp, GPX Studio, Google Earth, etc. Either way, the resulting file imports into all of those.

[!NOTE] If the companion app is connected via BLE, the export is safe — BLE and USB operate independently. If connected via USB, disconnect the app before exporting.

Periodically broadcasts a 0-hop advert with your GPS position. Configurable interval: off / 30 s / 1 min / 2 min / 5 min / 10 min / 30 min / 1 h. A blinking A appears in the status bar while active.

[!TIP] Audible connection heartbeat — the device chirps each time it receives an advert from any node (sound chosen in Settings › Sound › AD sound). With Auto-Advert running on both ends (e.g. two people on a hike), each hearing the other's periodic advert becomes a hands-free "in range" beep — no need to look at the screen. It fires for every received advert, so in a busy mesh it can get chatty; choose None in Settings › Sound › AD sound to silence just this event, or set Settings › Sound › Advert scope to Zero-hop to limit it to local adverts only. You can also set Settings › Sound › Buzzer to Off (or Auto, which mutes while a companion app is connected) to silence all buzzer output.

Compass

A heads-up GPS compass. The L1 has no magnetometer, so the heading is the course over ground — derived from how your GPS position moves over the last few seconds. The display is a horizontal heading tape: a fixed travel-direction pointer sits at the centre and the N..E..S..W scale scrolls underneath it as you turn, so whatever is under the pointer is your current course. A large numeric readout below shows that course in degrees and cardinal (e.g. 145° SE).

Because the heading comes from movement, it only updates while you are actually moving: standing still shows move to set heading (and navigation's Hdg line reads --). Gross GPS jumps are rejected so a single bad fix can't swing the heading. The heading source runs whenever there's a GPS fix — recording a trail is not required.

Ringtone Editor

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A step sequencer for composing custom notification melodies. Two slots — Melody 1 and Melody 2 — switchable from within the editor.

Each melody supports up to 32 notes:

Parameter	Options
Pitch	C / D / E / F / G / A / B / pause
Octave	4 – 7
Duration	1/4 / 1/8 / 1/16 / 1/32
BPM	60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180

Navigation in the editor:

LEFT/RIGHT — move between notes
UP/DOWN — change pitch of selected note
Enter — cycle octave of selected note
Hold Enter (or context menu) — open options menu

Options menu:

Item	Interaction	Action
Play / Stop	Enter	Preview the melody
Melody 1 / 2	Enter	Switch to the other slot
Duration	LEFT/RIGHT	Cycle duration for selected note
BPM	LEFT/RIGHT	Cycle tempo
Insert	Enter	Insert a new note after the cursor
Delete	Enter	Delete the note at cursor
Save & Exit	Enter	Persist the melody and return to Tools
Discard	Enter	Return to Tools without saving

Melodies can be assigned in Settings › Sound (global default) or overridden per contact or channel from the Messages screen context menu.

Auto-Reply Bot

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Automatically replies to incoming messages that contain a configured trigger word (case-insensitive, contains match).

When the bot is enabled it listens to DMs by default. Channel monitoring is an optional addition — select a channel separately to activate it alongside DM mode.

Setting	Description
Bot	ON / OFF — enables DM listening
Channel mode	ON / OFF — additionally monitors a selected channel
Channel	Which channel to monitor (only relevant when channel mode is ON)
Trigger	Word or phrase that activates the reply (shared by both modes, case-insensitive)
DM reply	Reply text for DMs; supports `{time}` and `{loc}` placeholders
Channel reply	Reply text for channel messages; supports `{time}` and `{loc}` placeholders

A 10-second cooldown prevents repeated replies in quick succession.