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4.4 KiB
4.4 KiB
Offband Meshcore 1.6.0
The first stable release of the 1.5.0 line and the production successor to 1.4.0. One of our largest releases: a full contacts overhaul, stock-compatible config and identity portability, region radio presets, self-healing contact sync, and a deep pass on Bluetooth reliability. Over 100 changes since the 1.5.0 beta.
Contacts, reworked
- Tap a contact shared on a channel to add it, from an inline Add Contact card (#610), and share your own contact into a channel from the + picker (#611).
- Contact QR: show your contact as a QR and scan someone else's to add them, reachable from the contacts menu or the key field (#629).
- Add by public key: type or paste a key (#628), or add from a key alone before any advert arrives (#627).
- Cross-client with stock MeshCore: Offband parses and emits the stock contact-share URI, so contacts move both ways between Offband and stock (#625, #626), and pasted shares in our own channel format are accepted too (#611).
- Each contact shows how far its identity is confirmed (#630), and names are handled correctly on the wire (no truncation mid-character) (#636).
- Channel senders: add, view, or block a sender from an avatar tap or long-press, with clear messaging when a name is unknown or an add fails (#565).
Bring your setup with you
- Stock-compatible config export and import: move a radio's full configuration in and out in the exact format stock MeshCore uses, wired into Settings (#572, #573, #574, #575, #576).
- Identity export/import for your connector, with an auto-add hop limit (#578).
Radio presets
- A preset picker grouped by region and labeled by source, crediting Liam Cottle / MeshCore for the upstream presets (#727, #728, #729, #731).
- Apply a preset's path hash to a companion, observer, repeater, or room server (#730, #735, #649), with the picker built into repeater and room-server settings (#734). Region matching accounts for the path-hash mode, so a USA radio is not mislabeled as Canada (#747).
Sync that heals itself
- Offband detects a short contact sync and recovers it with paced, capped re-syncs and per-key checks, then shows a banner with the recovered count and which contacts are genuinely gone (#762, #763, #764, #674).
- A short or unreadable sync never overwrites your saved contacts (#671, #673), a silent contact stream ends on its own after 30 seconds (#672), and only one contact request runs at a time (#672).
- Apply a remote radio setting temporarily (tempradio) (#662), and manage a sensor like a repeater (#745).
Bluetooth reliability
- The composer is no longer locked by an unreported BLE MTU. Offband reports the negotiated MTU on Linux (#717) and Windows (through a vendored BLE plugin with live MTU updates) (#686), and lifts the floor that locked it on web (#718). If a link genuinely cannot carry a message, it explains why instead of showing a dead field (#684).
- Sturdier connects and disconnects: bounded GATT-133 retry with readable errors (#698), an unconfirmed disconnect now retries and warns instead of being swallowed (#697), and leaked GATT handles are closed (#696).
- USB serial no longer drops bytes: mutexes initialize before the reader runs, and each callback drains fully (#710, #711).
Delivery and messaging fixes
- Delivered direct messages are no longer marked failed: send correlation adopts the radio's own ACK hash (#581).
- Late repeater replies go to the app log, not your screen (#589).
Also new since 1.4.0 (the 1.5.0 beta groundwork)
- An Experimental section unlocked by a 7-tap on the Build row; disabling it clears every experimental toggle (#509, #553).
- OKIMesh CoreScope (Experimental): per-packet observer counts from OKIMesh's CoreScope service. It needs forthcoming Offband firmware and stays inert until then, and now cleanly distinguishes not-found from unreachable (#549, #550, #678).
- An About screen in its own Settings category (#526, #527), top-of-screen toast notifications announced to screen readers (#638), and a refreshed web identity (#608).
Known issues
- On Windows, BLE Disconnect can still leave the radio held by the OS until you replug (#688).
Offband is open source and always will be. If you would like to help keep it going, there is a donation page at https://offband.org/donate. Thank you for being part of it.