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Hacker Pager is a peer-to-peer messaging gadget: no internet or cellular required [1]

['Rob Beschizza']

Date: 2025-07-31

The Hacker Pager is a wonderfully old-fashioned yet perfectly contemporary wireless messaging gadget powered by Meshtastic, an open source, off-grid, low-power network. It doesn't need cell towers, internet access, or any other infrastructure. What it needs is other Hacker Pagers: it's entirely peer-to-peer.

Join the public mesh-wide chat room, or send encrypted DMs to your friends. Other nearby Meshtastic devices listen for and relay messages until they reach their destinations. Read and write messages directly on your Pager. Unlike most Meshtastic devices, a separate phone app is not required. Control everything using the Hacker Pager's fully custom UI, tailor-made to fit its retro LCD screen. Optionally pair your Pager with the official Meshtastic app for Android and iPhone over Bluetooth.

The specifications target low-power: it has an ESP32 microcontroller, a LoRa radio, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, and an 8Gb microSD card slotted to go. It also comes with a retro VHS-style storage case, toolkit, desk stand and lanyard. It is 114x84x22.2mm (4.49 inches by 3.31 inches by 0.87 inches)

It's currently sold out, but $200 when available. Hackaday's Tom Nardi reviews it.

One of my favorite features doesn't even kick in until you've put the Hacker Pager down for a bit. Once the device has hit the user-defined idle timeout, the screen backlight turns off and the screen shifts over to an ambient clock display that also shows critical status information such as battery level, number of nodes in the area, and a new message indicator. It's also got the features you'd expect from a modernized pager. You can be notified of incoming messages by the classic audible alert or vibration, naturally. But there's also 36 addressable RGB LEDs and a dozen UV LEDs that are more than happy to put on a light show each time something hits your inbox.

It took me a while to find out the range of the LoRa radio: "up to 30 miles outdoor line of sight." 70 of those and the Vikings will never again land on British shores again without word getting quickly to Winchester!

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[1] Url: https://boingboing.net/2025/07/31/hacker-pager-is-a-peer-to-peer-messaging-gadget-no-internet-or-cellular-required.html

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