Using Meshmore XR

Meshmore XR is a spatial client for a MeshCore LoRa mesh. This page is the whole manual. If you are choosing hardware first, see our device guide on the Offline SNS site; if you want the same mesh on a phone, that is Meshmore SNS.

1 · What you need

• Android XR glasses. Built and tested on the XREAL Aura.
• A MeshCore companion radio flashed with the companion_radio_ble firmware, powered on, within Bluetooth range. Any board from the device guide works.
• Nothing else — no account, no app server, no internet.

2 · First launch

1. Grant Bluetooth when asked — it is how the app reaches your radio, and nothing starts without it.
2. The app scans, prefers a radio it has bonded with before (otherwise the strongest signal), and walks a four-step ladder it shows and sounds out: LOOKING FOR A RADIO → CONNECTING → HANDSHAKING → READING RADIO. Where the ladder stops is where the problem is.
3. First time only: your radio shows a 6-digit code on its screen and the glasses raise a pairing dialog — type the code with the soft keyboard. After this one bond you will never be asked again (until the radio is re-flashed; the code changes every reboot, so always read the current one).
4. The boot scene plays your theme’s welcome tune while the contact list loads into the vessel under the wordmark. The build version is printed right there — if you ever wonder what you’re running, look at the splash.

Region check. As soon as the app knows both where you are and what your radio is set to, it compares them. If they disagree — a US preset standing in Japan — it says so and opens the region list. Pick a preset that is legal where you are; every node you talk to must share it. Presets are community settings, not legal advice; in Japan the hardware itself must carry 技適.

3 · The Horizon

The ring around you is your mesh. Every node your radio can hear stands at its true compass bearing, range mapped logarithmically from arm’s length to the 50 km rim.

• Shape is type: a plain mote is a node, concentric rings a repeater, a wide coarse ring a cluster — a group too dense to draw separately, labelled like +19 NW 12KM.
• Brightness is age. Fresh nodes glow; a node fades over six hours of silence. The ring prefers live nodes: recently-heard peers outrank near-but-silent ones, and your favourites always make the cut.
• Pinch a cluster for its menu: MAGNIFY opens a lens over that wedge (B backs out one level), BEARING and NEAREST tell you what’s inside.
• A pulse rippling from a node means a real packet just arrived.

No nodes visible? The band will say why: NO FIX means there is nothing to measure bearings from — your radio has no GPS and headset location is off. One pinch on the HERE control fixes it. Positions never leave the device unless you separately enable sharing.

4 · The dock and gestures

The dock is a pad of controls to your lower left — two columns, read down the near column first: compass and link bands, setup, help, here, wide, inbox, roster, north, find. Point and pinch; if your hands are busy or untracked, look at a control and hold — gaze-dwell fires it.

Hand signs (shown on the HELP card with drawings):

Hold a sign still for half a second, palm away from your face. Every recognition clicks in the puck; a refusal is a double-click that feels wrong on purpose.

5 · Nodes have verbs

Pinch any node: its FOCUS card opens (name, range, compass, hops, live/stale, telemetry if known) with a four-way menu beside it —

• FAVOURITE — star it. Starred nodes float to the front of the ring and the top of search, forever.
• MESSAGE — opens your conversation. Sending is deliberately locked to your own registered hardware; other people’s nodes answer NOT YOUR NODE — SEND LOCKED.
• TELEMETRY — one polite request for that node’s battery/environment readings. Manual and single, never automatic: it spends the other node’s battery.
• CLOSE.

6 · Find anyone

The FIND control opens a search panel with the system keyboard already up. Type any part of a name or key — NO MATCH IN 350 means it truly is not there. Chips narrow further: ★ FAVOURITES and one chip per tag you’ve created. Terms combine by narrowing. Each result row carries a star toggle and +TAG — tag the nodes from that trip hike and they are one chip away forever. The query outlives the panel: B puts the keyboard away and keeps the filter (the FIND control stays lit); CLEAR restores the whole mesh.

7 · Messages

• Inbox lists conversations, newest activity first; pick one to open its thread corridor. OLDER pages back.
• The reel (palm up, left hand) is triage: scrub the last dozen messages on your wrist without opening anything.
• The crown around a reel card offers REPLY (three canned phrases), SPEAK (dictation — mic listens only while you dictate), READ ALOUD, THREAD, and SEND/CANCEL confirmation. Nothing transmits without your confirm.
• Per-channel read-aloud: SETUP → CHANNELS, pick a channel — it speaks new arrivals. A DM arrives as a thud-beat-thud in the hand; channel traffic never buzzes.
• Suggested replies (off by default in APP settings) are drafted on device from a fixed phrase list — no model, no network.

8 · Channels

SETUP → CHANNELS shows your radio’s slots (PUBLIC marked — everyone in range reads it) and any channel heard in traffic.

• + NEW CHANNEL rolls a speakable name like PINE-FOX-47. Re-roll free; pinch again to write it. Share it by saying it — the other person types #pine-fox-47 (exactly as shown, lowercase) into Meshmore SNS and derives the same key. A guessed tag joins: private like an unlisted number, not like a safe. Strong keys stay on the phone app, which has a screen others can scan.
• + JOIN PUBLIC joins the well-known channel, with a warning that it is everyone.
• Occupied slots are never overwritten from the glasses.
• Sending on channels is off until you enable it in APP settings — asked twice, because a channel message goes to strangers.

9 · Themes

The palette control opens the picker — nine themes, each with its own structure, sounds, and (growing) welcome tune. Pick the tile you’re in to close; B reverts a preview. Three postures matter:

• Field (most themes): the room-scale ring.
• Active — HALO: built for hiking or riding. The scene re-centres as you move, the dock rides your right wrist (four controls), and the horizon keeps up with you. Not while driving.
• Tabletop — BIOLUME: the mesh as a half-metre diorama. With scene understanding granted it finds a real table, sits on it, and remembers that desk. Names live on leader lines beside the map; hover an orb for its callsign. If the model is ever somewhere wrong, H puts it back in front of you and re-finds the table.

10 · Settings that matter

SETUP opens the console: DEVICE (radio parameters — staged, and only written when you COMMIT), APP, PROFILE (themes), CHANNELS, DIAG, ABOUT.

In APP: headset location (off by default), share my location (off by default — broadcasts your position unencrypted to the mesh; separate switch on purpose), suggested replies, reduce motion, channel send, WHO MAY ASK ABOUT ME — three telemetry classes (battery / location / environment), each DENY, CONTACTS, or ANYONE — and message erase (asked twice, no undo).

The status band (left-hand A) reads like an instrument: LINK 3.9V 24/350 GPS — link state, radio battery, drawn/held nodes, and your position source. After a drop it counts: LOST 4M is how old everything you’re looking at is. The app reconnects by itself; walk back into range and the mesh returns.

More

• Devices that run this mesh
• Meshmore SNS — the phone app
• The Offline SNS project
• Privacy · Support