Meshtastic is a free and open source firmware (or application) for low cost lora devices. It utilizaes the LORA band which is completely legal to use without a licsense, since it operates in Canada's and the US's unlicensed ISM band.

(If you are in the EU, it is a different frequency than North America! Ensure to follow your governments regulations and guidelines!).

Since it's low power a node can sip off a battery for days with no problems.(well depends on the battery size, how much telemetry, etc)

Meshtastic is also end to end encrypted allowing for secure off grid communications with other nodes nearby, and also allows the use of MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) servers for online communication.

I am a developer who enjoys messing with free and open source projects. AS you can tell by this site, I'm not a very good website builder, but I wanted to make a place for everyone, not just residents of Nova Scotia, but a place for general information about meshtastic. I try to keep things cheap as times are rough for people here, but some things just cannot be purchased for a good price here. Anyways I wanted to give my thanks to the people of meshtastic for giving me the idea of making this site, and encouraging me to develop it!