Frequently asked questions

Does it need a phone signal?

No. That is the point of it. The tags talk to each other directly over LoRa. The only thing your phone’s connection changes is whether you can back things up to the cloud and download new map areas — neither of which you need in the field.

How far does it reach?

Terrain decides this far more than settings do. Line of sight across open ground or between two ridges can carry many kilometres; dense trees or a hill in the way can cut it to a few hundred metres.

Tags also relay for one another, so a group spread along a trail generally reaches further than any two of its radios could on their own. Treat any single number you read as an advertisement, not a promise.

Can other people read our messages?

Not the ones in a room. A room has its own AES key, generated on your phone and shared only with the people you invite. The app encrypts the message before handing it to the radio, and the radio encrypts it again at its own layer. A stranger with a Meshtastic receiver sees an undecodable blob.

The exception worth knowing: the primary channel — plain Meshtastic LongFast — is not private, and TrailMesh7 will never quietly fall back to it. If no room is set up, the app refuses to send rather than broadcasting to whoever is listening.

Do I need an account?

No. The app works fully signed out. Signing in adds three things and nothing else: a profile others see, backups of a tag’s settings and rooms, and escrow of a tag’s identity key so a lost tag’s rooms can be recovered. See privacy for exactly what each one stores.

What happens if I lose my phone?

If you were signed in and had backups on, a new phone can restore the tag’s rooms and keys. If you were not, the room keys existed only on that phone — somebody else in the room can invite you back in.

What happens if I lose the tag?

The room keys travel with the phone, not the tag, so whoever finds it cannot read your group’s messages without also having your unlocked phone. Escrowed identity keys let you move a tag’s identity to replacement hardware.

Does the app track my location?

Your position goes to the tags in your room, over the radio. It does not go to us — there is no server-side location store to put it in. Offline maps are downloaded to the phone and rendered there, so panning around a map does not report where you are looking.

Lift-top alerts have to keep watching your position while the phone is in a pocket, and the ordinary “while using the app” location permission is enough for that — the app holds a foreground service for your tag anyway, and that is what keeps the position arriving. If you would rather not grant location at all, switch on the tag’s own GPS under TM7 Tag and the ride is recognised from what the tag reports over the mesh instead. Running the tag’s own receiver uses more of its battery. Either way the detection happens on your phone.

Does dictation send my voice anywhere?

On iOS the system chooses the recogniser and uses the on-device one whenever there is no network. On Android there is a switch: leave it off and dictation is fully on-device, which is what you want out of range anyway. Turned on, it sends audio to the platform speech service when the offline recogniser is not available.

Received messages are read aloud but never written to the diagnostic log. Only text you dictated is.

Can I send a message without taking the phone out?

Yes, and how depends on the phone.

On Android, a single press on the tag button opens the microphone and you speak — screen off, phone in a pocket, nothing to touch.

On iPhone and iPad, the system refuses to let any app start recording from the background, and no setting changes that. So a tag press there sends your first quick reply instead, with five seconds to cancel by pressing again. To actually dictate with the phone away, ask Siri:

“Hey Siri, broadcast with TrailMesh7”

Siri takes the message and hands it to the app, which sends it over your tag’s radio. It works from a locked screen.

The phrases avoid the word “message” on purpose — Messages claims that word from Siri and would stop to ask which app you meant, which costs the tap the whole thing exists to avoid.

How long does the battery last?

It depends on the hardware, on how often GPS reports, and on how much the tag relays for other people. Tags spend most of their time listening, which is cheap — transmitting is what costs. A tracker left broadcasting position frequently will not last as long as a client tag in a pocket.

Can I use a tag I already own?

Only after you put TrailMesh7 firmware on it. The app requires the fork and will not operate with a tag running stock Meshtastic — it shows you the update instead. The fork builds for the RAK WisMesh Tag, so that is the hardware to have; other Meshtastic devices keep working as ordinary mesh radios with the Meshtastic app, but not with this one.

The first update has to be done from a computer over USB. Stock firmware reboots into a USB drive a phone cannot reach, so Bluetooth updates only work once the fork is on. What the fork changes.

How do I actually use it?

The user guide covers it: rooms and messages, hands-free voice, the map, Group SOS, and backups and housekeeping.

Why is my tag not showing up for anyone?

There is a whole page on this — setup and troubleshooting. The short version: check the region is set, give it a name, and then reboot it with the other tags powered on and listening.

Is there a web version?

Yes, at trailmesh7.app. It talks to a tag over USB using the browser’s Web Serial support. Bluetooth pairing is a phone feature.

Who makes this?

Levity7. Support is at Support@levity7.com.