Using dumb tasmota devices to create a mesh network?

[mgliewe]

Hi, this may sound as a silly idea...

First, pls, I know this is silly, I am a experienced software developer, and I am aware of the obstacles..

But..

I am planing to distribute quiet a bunch of cheap power measuring tasmota plugs on the area where I am living.. The area spreads over about two square kilometers, biggest distance from one outer plug to the other is about 800m, heavily shadowed by trees and walls and other obstacles. Therefore there´s now way to cover the whole area via a central wifi router.
Also, there´s gonna be quiet an amount of these plugs, I guess, if its gonna work out, its gonna be >200 of them..

One more constraint, it is supposed to be an off grid solution, meaning as a local non-cloud thingie..

My first idea was to take use of the works of martin-ger (https://github.com/martin-ger/esp_wifi_repeater#automesh-mode), and try to port it into the tasmota code base.
I am aware of its restrictions, but I was hoping it would make due with some tweaking, bandwidth is not an issue after all. Maybe with the use of some extra esp32 repeaters placed over the premises...

While first browsing the tasmota sources and git issues, I stumbled over ESP-NOW and the Range Extender functions that are already implemented..

Any way I could use one of those for the use case I have in mind?

I am aware that I could achieve what I have in mind with a bunch of of-the-shelf wifi reapeaters, but that would have to be quiet of an amount to cover the area, and where would be the fun to do that :)

[Jason2866]

Have you seen this https://github.com/arendst/Tasmota/blob/development/info/xdrv_57_tasmesh.md

[mgliewe]

Have you seen this https://github.com/arendst/Tasmota/blob/development/info/xdrv_57_tasmesh.md

interesting.. If I got it right, I would need a limited amount of esp32 nodes, that would collect data from the plugs in its covering area, and they would forward them to the mqtt broker? that sounds reasonable.

[mgliewe]

A small update... While browsing the Wifi code, I stumbled over the RANGE_EXTENDER code... Thats pretty much what I had in mind, though, having a lot of devices, maintaining the topology would become a nightmare.

I guess I will attempt to go on with my first idea, trying to adopt the automesh code of martin-ger´s NAPT router. On the good site, quiet of an amount of the needed modifications are already done, the wifi ap scanning/AP selection mechanism would have to be slightly modified, the SoftAP setup of the RANGE_EXTENDER code as well (forge a fake mac/bssid), also the napt settings.. but I think that can be done.

As a consequence, all direct IP connections to individual devices from the router wont be possible, so I would have to stick to mqtt, but thats ok for me. I was also thinking to implement a proxy into the web UI, so I could access individual devices via a forwarding proxy, but that would just be suggar on the top of the cake.

For overall distribution over the premise I am thinking to use IP-over-LORA, as implemented by RNODE [https://github.com/markqvist/RNode_Firmware], but that´s gonna be the next step.