HiLetgo ESP32 V3 LoRa V3 SX1262 0.96 inch OLED Display Development Board WiFi Bluetooth Dual Core 240MHz CP2102 and 863-928MHz Antenna for Arduino Smart Home WiFi LoRa 32(Unsoldered)

If you’re buying this for Meshtastic it’s a solid, easy to use MCU with great company and community support. Easy to flash, everything works.There really isn’t much else to say. The antennas aren’t the best, but they’ll do just fine at first, but that’s the only issue.

1st and foremost: I suggest on github using ropg/Heltec_ESP32_LoRa_v3 -- it's far easier to work with than the manufacturer provided libraries and is based on open source standards rather than their own radio stack.Other than that, these are great. I am using them to remotely monitor car battery level. Works from 1/2 mile away between buildings and with imperfect antenna positioning. A little fiddly to get set up but -- that's not the boards fault, just the nature of DIY. I strongly endorse these.

I used this Heltec board, dubbed the "Wifi Lora 32 (V2)" in the board manager, on a windows 10 machine via the arduino IDE. Following the documentation provided on their read-the-docs website, the steps I took to get up and running with this board were (see the notes on the product description to a link to the full guide which contains information about the docs locations):1) download the board configuration by adding the board url, searching for it in board manager, then installing it2) download the HelTecAutomation/ESP32_LoRaWAN GitHub library by searching for the Heltec ESP32 Dev-boards library in the library manager, then installing it3) change board (via tools drop-down) to 'wireless stick' after selecting the correct port (from tools dropdown)4) select the lorawan region corresponding to your country from the tools dropdown (United States uses region_us915)5) run the factory test example sketch from the esp32 dev-boards example folder for wifi lora 32 (from the file drop down)6) you should note that the OLED display turns on and reports sending "packet 0"The default sketch will send packets back and forth over the Lora protocol to other boards that are running on the same band. If you update your wifi details in the sketch, it will also connect to your wifi. I used this with another Heltec board at the same time (the wireless stick); by default, both boards pinged the message "hello" back and forth, incrementing a counter with each successful message transmission.For further usage of the Heltec board and library, their docs (on read the docs) provide more information (for example writing content to the OLED).All in all, I found this board quick to get set up and running, well supported, and, most importantly, fun!

This is the great starting point for Meshtastic. These boards do not come preloaded. You will have to load them using the Meshtastic flasher website. There are a lot of cases available on printables.com and thingiverse.com. The stubby antenna it’s provided with actually measured pretty good on the nano VNA. Most of the cases out there for 3-D printing. Use the 1100 mah battery so be careful if you’re ordering another one that’s larger you might have to customize that case.

Using for Meshtastic, works well. Flashing firmware was a little tricky, timing dependent.