meshtastic-detection

What This Skill Does

The meshtastic-detection skill is a specialized monitoring agent designed to integrate LoRa-based remote sensing into your OpenClaw environment. It acts as a bridge between physical hardware—specifically Meshtastic-compatible devices like RAK4631 or T-Beam nodes—and your local monitoring infrastructure. The primary function of this skill is to listen for specific DETECTION_SENSOR_APP packets sent over LoRa frequencies. When the remote hardware's GPIO pin is triggered by a sensor, the event is immediately captured, timestamped, and logged to local storage. Unlike standard messaging apps, this skill is purpose-built for low-latency alerting, ensuring that when a physical target is detected in the field, an immediate push notification is routed through the OpenClaw notification pipeline (e.g., Feishu).

Installation

Installation is streamlined via the OpenClaw package manager. First, ensure you have your hardware connected via USB. Run the installation command: clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/autume/meshtastic-detection. Once installed, navigate to the base directory and execute the ./setup.sh script to configure the Python virtual environment and dependencies. You must start the USB receiver daemon using python scripts/usb_receiver.py --port /dev/your_port_here to begin data ingestion. For production environments, it is recommended to run this daemon as a background system service.

Use Cases

This skill is ideal for remote property surveillance, wildlife monitoring, or industrial safety. For example, if you place a LoRa-enabled motion sensor in a remote area, the meshtastic-detection skill will alert you the instant that sensor is tripped. It is also highly effective for security perimeter maintenance, allowing for a headless, low-power detection mesh that operates independently of cellular networks.

Example Prompts

1. "OpenClaw, show me the latest detection event captured by the meshtastic-detection skill."
2. "Summarize all detection alerts from the last 24 hours using the sensor CLI."
3. "Check if any new high-priority sensor events were recorded in the last hour and notify me on Feishu."

Tips & Limitations

• Data Integrity: The system uses a JSONL format for logs, which is robust against sudden power loss. Always ensure you have enough disk space for long-term monitoring.
• Connectivity: Because this relies on LoRa, ensure your receiver node is located in a position with a clear line-of-sight to the remote sensors.
• Filtering: This skill strictly ignores non-detection traffic. If you need to monitor telemetry or position packets, you will need to extend the usb_receiver.py logic.
• Latency: While LoRa is reliable, environmental interference can delay packet transmission by several seconds.