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MeshCore · community fork · espnow-ip-bridge

Echo Board

A room server that quietly listens to one group channel — public or private, doesn't matter — and turns its messages into a post feed anyone can browse and catch up on later, with no admin sitting there relaying things by hand.

One channel per board, by design Works with private channels too No LoRa radio required

What actually shows up

Whatever gets said on the channel becomes a post, verbatim, attributed to whoever sent it:

JD
jane_danyone know if the north trail is still washed out?
RK
rk_opscleared as of this morning, saw the crew out there
Echo Board's post feed — same channel, always there to catch up on

No channel-name prefix gets added — an Echo Board only ever mirrors one channel by design, so there's nothing to disambiguate, and the full post-length budget stays available for the message itself.

Setup

Needs the ESP‑NOW join configured first (same as any Sidecar — see the Sidecar setup page if you haven't done that yet), then one command:

set room.channel <name> <psk>
get room.channel   # read back current name + psk, or "(not set)"

psk is the channel's secret key — whatever your app shows on that channel's share/export screen. Either hex (32 or 64 characters) or base64 works, auto-detected, so it doesn't matter which format your app displays.

Good to know

Does the channel have to be public?

No. A private, invite-only channel works exactly the same way — the only requirement is that whoever configures the Echo Board knows that channel's PSK, same as joining it from any regular app.

Why only one channel per board?

Deliberate. It keeps the setup simple (no channel-name prefix needed, no ambiguity about which channel a post came from) and leaves the full post-length budget available for the actual message. Want to mirror more than one channel? Run more than one Echo Board.

Does someone need to be logged in to see the feed?

Anyone who can log into the room server (as a guest or admin, however it's configured) can sync and read the post feed — no separate login for the mirrored channel itself.

Attaching this to a repeater for the first time?

Sidecar setup →