MeshCore Solo Companion Firmware

A fork of the official MeshCore companion radio firmware with extended features and UI enhancements, targeting a growing set of supported devices.

Join the discussion on the official MeshCore Discord: https://discord.gg/sdhYArU2jr

Solo firmware thread: https://discord.com/channels/1495203904898728149/1505294337884553447

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Supported Devices

Device	Display	Firmware file
Seeed Wio Tracker L1 (OLED)	SSD1306 / SH1106 128 × 64	solo-<version>-WioTrackerL1.uf2
Seeed Wio Tracker L1 (E-ink)	GxEPD2 250 × 122	solo-<version>-WioTrackerL1Eink.uf2
GAT562 30S Mesh Kit	SSD1306 128 × 64	solo-<version>-GAT562-30S-Mesh-Kit.uf2

All firmware files are published on the releases page. Each binary supports both BLE and USB serial — there are no separate BLE/USB builds.

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Feature highlights

• Extended language support with native Unicode rendering and input (Lemon font) alongside the original ASCII mode (Default font with transliteration) — on-screen keyboard alphabets for Cyrillic, Greek, Polish, Czech, Slovak, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Nordic (Danish/Norwegian/Swedish), selectable in Settings › Keyboard › Alphabet

• Enabled sensor screens with support for onboard sensors (temperature, humidity, pressure, luminosity, CO₂) and GPS data

• GPS navigation — a full navigation suite that needs no extra hardware (details in the Tools Screen docs):

  • Waypoints — mark a spot (car, camp, water…) with a short label, see it on the trail map, and get live bearing + distance back to it; the list always offers a one-tap backtrack to where your trail started
  • GPS compass — heading derived from course-over-ground (no magnetometer needed), shown as a clear scrolling heading tape with a large degrees + cardinal readout
  • Navigate to anything — a saved waypoint, a node straight from Nearby Nodes, or a location someone shares with you in a message
  • Share & save locations — send a waypoint to a contact or channel; on the other end, navigate to or save any shared location with one menu
  • Live location sharing — broadcast your position over the mesh as you move (movement-gated, to a channel or contact) and see others who share theirs as pins on the map and live distance/bearing in Nearby
  • Locator — arm a geofence around a target — a saved waypoint or a person (their live/last-known position) — and get an alert when you arrive/leave or they get near/far, with an optional homing beeper that ticks faster the closer you get. Set it from the Locator screen or straight from Nearby Nodes / Waypoints, and see the target as a flag on the map
  • GPS trail — background route recording with an auto-fit map (waypoints + live position), summary stats, auto-pause on stops, and GPX export
  • Metric or imperial — one global Units setting drives every distance and speed across the UI

• Messages Screen — view and send messages, open message details, reply with quick messages or custom text, navigate to / save locations shared in a message, per-channel notification and melody overrides, add/edit/delete channels on-device

• Favourites Dial — pin up to six contacts for quick access from the home screen

• Settings Screen — configure display, sound, home page order, radio and system settings

• Clock Screen — view time and date plus up to three configurable data fields, with built-in clock tools (one-shot alarm, countdown timer, stopwatch)

• Screen Lock — lock the device to prevent accidental keypresses, with a lock screen showing time and sensor data

• Tools Screen — GPS trail & waypoints, compass, nearby nodes (with ping & navigate), ringtone editor, auto-reply bot, auto-advert, live location sharing, locator, diagnostics, repeater, remote admin

• Battery saving (radio) — two optional, independent toggles under Settings › Radio:

  • Pwr save — hardware duty-cycle receive (SX126x SetRxDutyCycle): the radio cycles RX↔sleep on its own and wakes on a preamble, cutting average RX current with only a little added receive latency
  • Auto pwr — Adaptive Power Control: trims actual TX power on strong links (from ACK SNR) and ramps back up to the configured ceiling on weak/lost links; the home screen shows the live power

E-ink Display (Wio Tracker L1)

The e-ink variant targets the Wio Tracker L1 fitted with a 2.13″ GxEPD2 panel (250 × 122 px). All screens have been adapted for the e-ink panel:

• Adaptive layout — every screen reflows correctly in both landscape (250 × 122) and portrait (122 × 250) orientations
• Display rotation — configurable in Settings › Display; applied immediately and persisted across reboots
• Joystick rotation — independent of display rotation; useful for custom enclosures
• Full refresh interval — configurable in Settings › Display; reduces ghosting on long sessions
• Clock seconds suppressed by default — seconds are hidden to reduce per-second panel refreshes and extend display lifetime; re-enable in Settings › Display

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Flashing

1. Download the .uf2 file for your device from the releases page
2. Press reset twice quickly to enter bootloader mode — the device should appear as a mass storage drive on your computer
3. Copy the .uf2 file to the drive to flash the firmware

Important

BLE connection has priority over USB serial. When a BLE connection is active, the USB protocol is suspended. When connecting to the companion app via USB, ensure to disconnect from BLE first or disable BLE directly from the device to avoid confusion.

Updating to a newer version usually does not require erasing flash unless the release notes explicitly state otherwise.

Warning

When migrating from official or other custom firmware, backup your data and perform a factory reset to prevent conflicts with existing settings:

1. Open device settings in the companion app and download a data backup
2. Go to MeshCore Flasher, select your device, and perform Erase flash before flashing

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Documentation

This fork

Document	Description
Messages Screen	Sending messages, context menus, reply, navigate to / save shared locations, Notif/Melody overrides
Favourites Dial	Pinned contacts grid, unread badges, pin/unpin
Clock Screen	Clock page, date, configurable data fields, alarm / timer / stopwatch
Settings Screen	All settings sections with values and interactions
Screen Lock	Lock/unlock sequence, lock screen, auto-lock
Tools Screen	GPS trail & waypoints, compass, navigation, nearby nodes, ringtone editor, auto-reply bot, auto-advert, live location sharing, locator, diagnostics, repeater, remote admin
Solo UI framework	Developer guide — the reusable building blocks (screens, lists, popups, mini-icons, geo/persistence helpers) and how to add a new feature

Upstream MeshCore

Document	Description
FAQ	Frequently asked questions
CLI Commands	Commands for repeaters, room servers and sensors
Terminal Chat CLI	Commands for the terminal chat client
Companion Protocol	Serial/BLE frame protocol between device and app
Packet Format	LoRa packet structure
QR Codes	Channel and contact QR code formats

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Solo Tools

All solo builds include screenshot and GPX trail export support out of the box — no special build flags required.

Solo Tools Web App — no install required

Open the link in a browser with Web Serial support (Chromium-based) and click Connect device. The web app supports:

• Screenshot — capture the current display contents as a PNG
• GPX export — stream the GPS trail and download a timestamped .gpx file

Trigger the relevant action on the device (Tools › Trail › Hold Enter for GPX export, S key for screenshot) after connecting.

Disconnect from the companion app before connecting via USB — USB serial is suspended while a BLE connection is active.

If the companion app is connected over BLE the GPX export is safe (USB receive is ignored). If the app is on USB, disconnect it first — the raw stream will otherwise disrupt the app's frame protocol.

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Development

This fork tracks the upstream MeshCore repository. To prevent upstream changes from overwriting this README during merges, README.md is protected via .gitattributes. After cloning, run once:

git config merge.ours.driver true

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Fork the repository, make your changes, and open a pull request. Please follow the existing code style and keep changes focused.

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Contributors

Big thanks to the people who contributed to this fork:

• vanous
• marczykm

Built on upstream MeshCore and its community.