MeshCore Without a Phone? ThinkNode M9 Review

Most mesh nodes I use are little boxes with an antenna that live in a pocket or on a backpack strap, and the real interface is the phone app. That works, but it means every message starts with pulling out your phone, unlocking it, and hoping Bluetooth is still paired. The Elecrow ThinkNode M9 takes a different approach. Everything you need is on the device: screen, keyboard, GPS, and the LoRa radio.

The first thing I thought when I picked it up was old BlackBerry. It has that same chunky thumb keyboard under a landscape screen, and honestly it looks pretty sharp. If you plan on running a standalone firmware, this all-in-one layout makes a lot of sense, and that's exactly what I ended up doing.

In this review I power it up, flash alternative firmware, walk through the interface, send and receive messages against another node, and look at the maps and spectrum display. Then I'll give you my take on whether this is where mesh hardware is going.

First Look and Powering Up

The M9 comes in a nice case along with a quick start card that has a QR code on it. The card covers both versions of the device, since Elecrow sells a Meshtastic version and a MeshCore version. Mine is the MeshCore one.

The layout is simple. The GPS antenna sits on top, USB-C for charging is on the bottom, and the power button is on the side. The screen is a 2.4 inch TFT LCD, and below it is the full QWERTY keyboard plus a navigation pad and dedicated buttons.

Power it on and you get an Elecrow splash screen and a "please wait," and that's about it. Scanning the QR code on the card took me to online instructions, and the user guide link opened a "buy me a coffee" page. As a friend would say, it's time to pay. To be honest, I don't love reading instructions anyway, so I skimmed the steps for the stock Ripple firmware, decided I wasn't going to fight with it, and moved on to something else.

MeshCore vs. Meshtastic: Why It Matters Here

Since this article lives in the Meshtastic section, it's worth a quick word on why I ran MeshCore on this one. Both are open-source LoRa mesh projects for off-grid text messaging, and both run on the same kind of ESP32 and Semtech radio hardware. The big difference is how messages get across the mesh.

Meshtastic leans on flooding. Most nodes rebroadcast what they hear, which helps a message find its way but adds a lot of traffic as a network gets busy. MeshCore is stricter about roles. A companion or client device, which is what the M9 is by default, sends and receives its own messages but does not forward packets for anyone else. Dedicated repeaters do the relaying, and room servers can hold messages for people who were offline. Elecrow's own wiki spells this out for the M9: it runs as a standalone client, and multi-hop messaging happens through a repeater.

In practice that means two M9s in range of each other can talk directly, but if you want range across town, you need a MeshCore repeater somewhere in the middle. If your area already has a MeshCore network, the M9 drops right in. If your local mesh is all Meshtastic, keep in mind the two don't talk to each other, and Elecrow sells the M9 in a separate Meshtastic version. Only one firmware runs on a device at a time.

Exploring the Interface

Once it boots, it's quite a nice interface. Under management are the main toggles: Wi-Fi on and off, Bluetooth on and off, and GPS, which I turned on right away. There's also a theme setting. I tried the day theme first, but it's very bright, so I switched back to the night theme and rebooted. That looked much better in person and on camera too.

The apps menu has contacts (empty on a fresh install, of course) and a settings area, which is where Wi-Fi is actually configured. That took me a minute to find, since the Wi-Fi toggle and the Wi-Fi setup live in different places. Typing the password is where the keyboard earns its keep. To enter numbers, you hold the symbol key while tapping the keys. Once it was in, it connected automatically.

The GPS page showed the receiver on, and there are pages for battery, calibration, display timeout, and mileage. It's a lot of functionality for something this size, and none of it needed a phone.

Messaging and Maps

Sending a message is exactly what you'd hope. Open the chat, type with the keyboard, and press the center button to send. The dedicated buttons are useful once you learn them: the message button takes you to mentions, the chat button takes you to channels, the location button sends your position as a pin on the map, and the map button opens the map.

To test receiving, I turned the M9's screen off and sent a message to it from another node. The message popped up right on the display. Going into the Public channel, the message was there in the conversation. That's how it should work.

The feature I liked most was the spectrum display. When the other node sends a message, you can watch it show up on the spectrum view as it arrives. It's a small thing, but for anyone who likes seeing what's actually happening on the air, it's really great.

Having everything on the device itself just gives you more. Sometimes you don't want to bring a phone, and when you know you'll be off-grid, this is the kind of device you want.

The map took a little time to start loading tiles, but once it did, the detail was very good. Wadamesh also lets you control the device remotely over Wi-Fi, since it has VNC built in. There's even a web browser, though it's text only and won't display images. Not something you'd use daily, but it shows how much this firmware is trying to do.

What Phone-Free Actually Means

"No phone needed" gets thrown around a lot, so here's what it looked like in practice. Every step in this video after flashing happened on the M9 itself. I named the node, set the region, turned on GPS, changed the theme, joined Wi-Fi, typed and sent a message, received one, checked the channel, and pulled up the map. At no point did I open an app or pair anything over Bluetooth.

Compare that to a typical small node. The node handles the radio, but the phone is the screen, the keyboard, the contact list, and the map. If the phone battery dies, gets wet, or loses its Bluetooth pairing, the node is mostly a blinking light. With the M9, the radio and the interface share one battery and one case, so there's one thing to charge and one thing to keep track of.

That doesn't make phones useless. A phone still has a bigger screen and a faster keyboard. But when I know I'm going off-grid, or any time I'd rather leave the phone behind or save its battery for emergencies, having a self-contained device is the whole appeal.

Who the ThinkNode M9 Is For

I think the M9 makes the most sense for a few kinds of people. If you're already on a MeshCore network and you're tired of reaching for your phone every time something comes in, this is the obvious upgrade. If you're building a small group setup for family or a club where not everyone wants to install an app and pair a radio, handing someone a device with a keyboard is a lot simpler. And if you like tinkering with firmware, the fact that there are already alternatives like Wadamesh running on it is a good sign.

Where it makes less sense: if your local mesh is all Meshtastic, buy the Meshtastic version or a different device, since MeshCore and Meshtastic don't talk to each other. And if you want a node that just sits on a roof and relays traffic, this isn't that. The M9 is a client by default, and a dedicated repeater is the better tool for that job.

ThinkNode M9 Key Specs

Conclusion: Is This the Future of Mesh?

After using it, I think devices like the ThinkNode M9 are where mesh hardware is headed. With Wadamesh on it, this thing runs MeshCore with a real interface: a keyboard you can actually type on, a screen that shows messages the moment they arrive, GPS, maps with good detail, and a spectrum display I keep coming back to. I like it a lot more than the node-plus-phone setup.

It's not perfect. The quick start experience pointed me at a paid guide, the firmware I used was still beta on this hardware, and the SD card advisory is something every owner should read. But the core idea is right. When you know you're going off-grid and don't want to carry a phone, this is the kind of device you want in your pocket.

So what do you think? Would you rather carry an all-in-one mesh device like the M9, or stick with a smaller node controlled from your phone? Let me know in the comments on the video.