Nightly Build stuff

A couple of notes about AREDN builds -

You'll find a nightly build prefaced with "babel-".  These are babel-only nightly builds.  As such they don't contain the OLSR routing protocol and as a result, nodes running these builds will know nothing about nodes running only OLSR.  If you're bound and determined to test these nightly builds, ensure that any nodes that your babel-only node needs to talk to you are running at least the current production release (3.25.5.1), or the latest regular nightly build which contain both Babel and OLSR routing protocols.

Also - important!   If you decide you want to revert from Babel-only build to the regular build containing both protocols, you have to do a fresh install, then restore from backup.  (You DID remember to do a backup, right??  :-)  )

Nightly builds that are 20250218 and later contain the Babel protocol also, but the implementation of Babel since then has stomped out a number of bugs, some significant, and is still under active development.  So if you like to run nightly builds (babel or regular) ensure you stay current with the builds.

Also, AREDN has added support for two 802.11ah (HaLoW) devices, the HaLowLink 1 and the HelTec HT-HD01.  These are low power 900 MHz devices.   Because they are 32 MB devices, the nightly builds for them are Babel-only.  And they've not yet been included in the AREDN documentation because forking the docs for Babel-only would be (and will be, eventually) laborious.  For now, they'll be here:

https://github.com/aredn/aredn/blob/babel/SUPPORTED_DEVICES.md#morsemicro-and-partners

They come with OpenWrt, so the usual method for converting them to an AREDN device stands:  through the existing UI, uncheck the Keep Settings box, and upload the AREDN software .

On paper, the HaLowLink1 looks like the preferred device, but little testing has been done. They can be gotten through Mouser: https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Morse-Micro/MM-HL1-EXT?qs=sGAEpiMZZMu3sxpa5v1qro5FY7hlnl9Mqrn%2F31NWk68%3D  although we hear they're backordered until July.

The HelTEc HT-HD01 can be purchased through HelTec Automation directly:  https://heltec.org/project/ht-hd01/   It's somewhat less expensive than the HaLowLink 1.  But lead time is also into July  (both devices use the same chipset from Morse Micro).

Two things to be aware of with this device. First, and most importantly, we're unaware of any way to unbrick this device. If it fails you have a paperweight.   Second, The CPU they use is quite slow. The countdown screens when flashing or rebooting will pass 0 and then several more minutes will pass while you think the device is dead, and then it will reconnect. Seriously, it can take 10 minutes to come back online after flashing. So don't panic.   Because passing network traffic is not CPU-intensive, they should be OK in an AREDN environment.  But TBD.

If you haven't gathered it already, these devices are to be considered EXPERIMENTAL.  You have been warned :-)

If you'd like to play around with these devices, your best source of information for now will be the #halow channel in the AREDN Community workspace on Slack.  If you're not there already, drop me a note at orv.beach@gmail.com and I'll send you an invite.

73

Orv W6BI