Both units arrived in secure plastic cases and were largely ready to go out of the box. They both feature two function buttons, GPS switch, an antenna, rotary dial, and small e-ink display. After a quick charge, the units were ready to pair to a smartphone.
Both of these units come flashed with Meshtastic firmware out of the box. For the uninitiated, Meshtastic is a decentralized, LoRa-based mesh networking protocol designed for off-grid text communication. This is an expansive ecosystem if users already have a large local network to tap into. However, when scanning the local airwaves around Chesapeake, Virginia, during testing, the airwaves were completely quiet. Consequently, Meshtastic as a whole felt cumbersome and did not offer an experience that felt “grab-and-go,” which is a stark contrast to the physical radios themselves, which are exceedingly simple to operate. Still, the default software lacked immediate local utility, despite both units working as expected with the Meshtastic app and as hardware.