cvhviz/CAIRN cairn-v134

Cairn 134

on GitHub

Cairn 134 carries the wallpaper onto every page, makes joining a channel one tap from Chats, and reorganizes the Wi-Fi transfer page into tabs. Wi-Fi transfer no longer restarts the device when Bluetooth is off. Chat names are colored by kind, and the map groups nodes only when 8 or more crowd together. The plain Heltec V4 (OLED) companion gets Wi-Fi and goes out as an experimental build.

Highlights (L2 Pro, Heltec V4 touch kits, ThinkNode M9, T-Deck, T-LoRa Pager unless noted):

• Wallpaper on every page. The wallpaper now shows behind Chats, conversations, Nodes, node details, Channels and every Settings page, not just Home and the lock screen. Cards and message bubbles turn to frosted glass over it, and so do the side rail and status bar. The Radio tab and the Map keep their plain background. Without a wallpaper nothing changes.
• Simpler wallpaper picker. Settings › Appearance › Wallpaper lists None, Picture, the four built-in pictures, then one Gradient and one Color card, each opening its own page of eight.
• Join a channel from Chats. The top row of Chats has + Channel next to + New message. It opens the Join page: a hashtag channel by name, a private one by name and key (or a new random key), or Public again. Before, this was only under Settings › LoRa › Channels.
• Wi-Fi transfer page, reorganized. Four tabs: Music, Photos, Files, Firmware, with the card's free space at the top. Music and Photos show what is on the card next to the uploader. Files has the chat history download, recordings, trips (with GPX), the contacts backup and logs. Drop files anywhere and they still go to the right place.
• Clearer upload progress. After a file is sent, its row says Saving… until the device has written it. A firmware upload shows the percentage, then Writing and checking the firmware…, then Installed. A second batch starts a fresh list.
• No restart after Wi-Fi transfer when Bluetooth is off. Wi-Fi transfer has to shut Bluetooth down, and only a restart brings it back, so ending a session always restarted the device. With Bluetooth set off there is nothing to bring back, so the device keeps running. Turning Bluetooth on later asks first, then restarts. With Bluetooth on, it works as before.
• Chat names colored by kind in the chat list and on Home: people in the text color, room servers violet, channels blue, #Public amber.
• Map groups from 8 nodes. A count bubble now needs 8 or more nodes, so nearby repeaters stay separate dots with their names, and panning no longer groups and ungroups them.
• Bluetooth off is remembered across restarts on the one-button boards (T096, T114, Wireless Tracker V2, V4-R8 OLED), the Wio Tracker L1 family and the T-Display SF32.
• Online update: no frozen screen after Install. The page now walks through each step (saving chats and contacts, turning off Bluetooth, connecting, downloading with a progress bar, checking, restarting).

Changed

• Wallpaper on every page and the simpler picker (see above).
• + Channel on the Chats page (see above).
• Wi-Fi transfer page tabs and upload progress (see above).
• No restart after Wi-Fi transfer with Bluetooth off (see above).
• Chat name colors, map grouping, Bluetooth off remembered, online update steps (see above).

Checked: built from one tree for every board, each file checked for the build number and date, and the same set of files as 133. On an L2 Pro: the wallpaper on every page and the new picker, and Wi-Fi transfer with Bluetooth off (no restart; Bluetooth on asks, then restarts) and with Bluetooth on (restarts as before). The transfer page was tested in a browser against a stand-in for the device (uploads, progress, errors, firmware install), and + Channel in the simulator. Not checked yet on a device: the transfer page over real Wi-Fi, and + Channel on hardware. The L1 family, the T096, the T114, the repeaters and the T-Display SF32 get only the changes listed for them.

Update

• On Cairn 108 to 133 (L2 Pro, Heltec V4 touch on either kit, ThinkNode M9, T-Deck, T-Display SF32, T-LoRa Pager): Settings › System › Firmware update: Check, Download, Install. The new build starts on trial and goes back to the old one by itself if it fails to start. On the T-Display SF32, dock the core on the keyboard board first (it carries the Wi-Fi chip).
• T-Deck started from an SD-card launcher: don't use Update on 121 or earlier (122 and later are fine). Copy MeshCore-TDeckPlus-Cairn134-2026-11-14-update.bin to the card and install it from the launcher, as you installed Cairn.
• Over USB on an ESP32 board: the -full.bin goes at 0x0, after Erase Flash, and erases everything. The -update.bin goes at 0x10000 and keeps your data. If the board last updated over Wi-Fi, clear the boot selector first, as in the ESP32 install guide.
• Heltec Wireless Tracker V2 and V4-R8 (OLED) companions: update with the -ble-update.bin at 0x10000; these two don't update over Wi-Fi. A first install is the -ble-full.bin at 0x0 after an erase (back up your node's private key from the app first if the board runs MeshCore or Meshtastic now). Files with -repeater in the name are the repeater, not the companion.
• Wio Tracker L1 Pro, DV1, L1 e-ink, the room server, the T096 and the T114: double-tap Reset and copy the board's .uf2 onto the drive that appears (UF2 guide), or use the Cairn app's Firmware Update over Bluetooth. Updating keeps your identity, contacts, channels and settings.
• Compact repeaters: write the -repeater-update.bin at 0x10000, or copy the -repeater.uf2. They don't update over Wi-Fi.
• T-LoRa Pager: pick the file for your radio (it's on the box and the back label). SX1262 units take TLoraPager, LR1121 units take TLoraPagerLR1121; the wrong one runs but has no radio. The online update keeps to the radio you installed.
• A board without Cairn: write the board's -full.bin (ESP32 install guide), copy the .uf2 (UF2 guide), or run the SF32 installer (SF32 install guide).

Downloads

The compact repeater files (-repeater in the name) are rebuilt from the same tree: Heltec T096 and T114 (.uf2), and the Heltec Wireless Tracker, Tracker V2, V2, V3, V4 and V4-R8 (-repeater-full.bin and -repeater-update.bin). Cairn 134 runs on MeshCore 1.18.0, as 118 to 133 did. SHA256SUMS.txt covers every file: shasum -a 256 -c SHA256SUMS.txt.

Not in this release: the experimental boards (what experimental builds are). New with 134: the plain Heltec WiFi LoRa 32 V4 (OLED) companion, now with Wi-Fi like the V4-R8, as experimental-heltec-v4-134 (it has not run on a plain V4 yet: reports welcome in #53). The GAT562 30S Mesh Kit companion and the ThinkNode M9 USB companion stay on Cairn 131; the Heltec Vision Master T190 and WiFi LoRa 32 V3 companions stay on Cairn 130, and the LilyGO T5 E-Paper S3 Pro and the SenseCAP MeshPager X2 stay on Cairn 127.