Return to Sender. The T-Deck learned to whisper. Until now everything it said on LoRa went out to the whole channel, like shouting across a campground. Now you can send one person a private message on Meshtastic or MeshCore, watch the dots while it travels, and get a little green tick when it lands. If it doesn't land after three tries, you get a red cross and Squachy takes it personally. "Address unknown. No such number. No such zone. I checked twice. I'm very thorough."
A DMs tab. The LORA page and LORA CHATS have a third tab beside MESHTASTIC and MESHCORE. One row per conversation, with a NEW count, and both networks in one list, each name in its network's colour. Tap a row to open it. The line you type into says PRIVATE, so you always know you're not about to tell the entire forest about your boot situation.
Meshtastic DMs. Sealed so only the person you sent it to can read it, with a delivery receipt and up to three tries. Proven both ways against a stock Meshtastic T-Deck. You can also tap somebody's line in the MESHTASTIC tab to start a conversation with them.
MeshCore DMs. MeshCore answers a private message by sending the receipt back the way the message came, which is where this release got its name. The T-Deck makes its own MeshCore identity, introduces itself, learns contacts from what it hears, and proved it both ways against a T-Deck Pro running MeshCore. "Return to sender. Specifically, return to me. I sent it."
Tap a radar dot. On the LORA page, tap a dot on the radar to message that node. Dots on the rim count too, for the shy ones.
The emulator moved into a workshop. squachwatch.com/emulator now puts each board on a cutting mat with a ruler and a USB cable, drawn around its live screen at its real size. Five boards on the shelf: the 2.8" CYD, the 3.5", the T-Deck, the T-Watch and the Cardputer. And the last three run their own firmware now, not the CYD's in a costume: type on the T-Deck's keyboard and press Enter for the LORA page, press the watch's crown, move the Cardputer's cursor with your arrow keys. The BOOT button under a CYD gives you real POCKET MODE. There's a Flash this board button on each, for when you're ready to commit. Squachy has never been so well lit.
The Arlo that wasn't. One maker code in the camera list said "Arlo" but really belongs to Espressif, the people who make the chip inside nearly every ESP32, including SquachWatch itself. So a dev board, a smart plug, or another SquachWatch could show up as a hidden camera. It's gone, and Arlo's three real codes are in its place. Thanks to at0m-b0mb, who also caught the next one (PR #114).
WiFi scans keep quiet. Opening WIFI SCAN, or picking a network for updates, used to send out a little "anyone there?" on every channel, with the board's own address on it. Now both just listen. Quicker, too. A new check stops a loud scan from ever sneaking back in. "I am a detector. I detect. I do not announce myself. Except to you. Hello."
LOG under Privacy Mode. Privacy Mode shortens device names, but the long-press confirm on LOG was shortening the type and maker too, so RING became RIN. Now only real names get trimmed. Thanks to fengqiaoqu (PR #102).
New board: Waveshare ESP32-C5 2.8" (BETA). A 2.8" touch board on the ESP32-C5, with 5 GHz WiFi scanning. Screen, touch, SD, WiFi and Bluetooth all work. It's build-from-source for now; docs/WAVESHARE-C5-28.md has the details. Thanks to bobsdinner-cell (PR #62).
A GPS build for the Freenove S3 2.8". Plug a GPS into the Freenove's UART port and the freenove-s3-gps build puts a position on SD log rows and alert cards, sets the clock from the sky, and writes WARDRIVE's WiGLE file. The pins are in docs/PINOUT.md. Also from bobsdinner-cell (PR #81). That's two in one release. We may have to start paying rent.
The actually-useful part
Added
- T-Deck: Meshtastic direct messages (PKI-sealed), with ACKs, three tries, and dots / tick / red cross on each line.
- T-Deck: MeshCore direct messages: own Ed25519 identity kept in NVS, our advert before the first DM, contacts from adverts, three tries, receipts by path return or bare ACK.
- T-Deck: a DMs tab on the LORA page and in LORA CHATS covering both networks; compose chip reads PRIVATE there; tapping a line in the MESHTASTIC tab opens a DM with its sender.
- T-Deck: tap a radar dot (within 14 px, rim included) to open a DM with that node.
- T-Deck console: LORA MCKEYS, LORA MCADVERT, LORA MCDM.
- Emulator (squachwatch.com/emulator): a bench page with five boards drawn around the screen, Fit / Same scale / Actual size, a cm ruler, a Flash this board card, keys 1-5 to switch boards.
- Emulator: the T-Deck, T-Watch S3 and Cardputer ADV run their own builds (keyboard and LORA page, crown, cursor keys), each with its own saved settings; BOOT gives POCKET MODE on the CYDs.
- Arlo's own OUIs FC:9C:98, 48:62:64 and A4:11:62 as cameras, at High (PR #114 by at0m-b0mb).
- Waveshare ESP32-C5-Touch-LCD-2.8 (BETA, build from source):
waveshare-c5-28, docs/WAVESHARE-C5-28.md (PR #62 by bobsdinner-cell). - Freenove ESP32-S3 2.8": a GPS build,
freenove-s3-gps, on the UART port: positions on SD rows and alerts, clock from GPS, WARDRIVE (PR #81 by bobsdinner-cell). - Build checks: no active WiFi scan without a written reason; the OUI table is checked against the IEEE registry on demand and when it changes.
Changed
- WIFI SCAN and the update network picker scan passively (no probe requests).
- The online emulator is built from the released firmware again; it had been stuck on a v1.7-era build.
- Holding BOOT to power off has its own build flag, separate from the speaker one (no change on any shipped board).
Fixed
- BC:DD:C2 (Espressif) no longer reads as an Arlo camera, so ESP32 boards, including other SquachWatches, are not logged as cameras (PR #114 by at0m-b0mb).
- LOG long-press confirm under Privacy Mode no longer masks type and maker labels (PR #102 by fengqiaoqu, issue #92).
- Tab5: touch, after a merge moved two of its lines.