First impressions with the T1000e weren’t great, TBH, but I finally got it going and think I’m going to like it compared to my old Heltec V3.
Initial Setup
The erase and flashing procedure on these is a lot more involved than with its ESP32-based cousins. Technically speaking, it’s easier since you basically just drag/drop a firmware file like you’re copying it to a flash drive, but there’s also a lot more clicking around, mode switching, and a separate erase procedure. Not a complaint, just different and annoying. On the plus side, this model is able to update the firmware over Bluetooth in the app so that’s a plus going forward.
For whatever reason, it just would not load my imported channel config either from my provisioning script or from restoring a backup. The imported config also seemed to keep disabling Bluetooth on it which was frustrating. Finally just did it manually in the app, and it finally worked after a couple of factory resets.
I had to play around with it a bit to get the GPS and light/temperature sensors working, but those are reporting nicely now.
Hands-On
Bought a couple of extra charging adapters since they don’t use USB-C and decided to 3D print a little cradle to drop it into.
I’m definitely going to miss being able to send canned messages from the device itself. My old EDC node didn’t have a rotary encoder, but the 2.7 firmware added the ability to use the single button to send them which was awesome since I never liked carrying my larger nodes that had the rotary encoders.
Other than that, I think this is my new favorite thing.
Battery Life
Cannot yet say, but probably a lot better than my Heltec. This one has a 700 mAh battery and most of the reviews I’ve read say it gets a day or two per charge. That beats the ~18 hours my Heltecs get on a 2,000 mAh battery.
Bonus
I also like that it has not one but two pop culture references built in:
First, it looks a lot like the locator card that saved M’s ass in “The World is Not Enough”. And it has GPS, so it kind of is an IRL version of that prop.
Locator Card Movie Prop
Also, the notification tone is the Cisco ringtone better known as the “CTU Ringtone”.
I loke that 3d print! Very practical.
After I posted, I made it even more practical by attaching it to the back of my phone stand. The magnets keep it securely in there even at a ~45 degree angle.
Eventually I’m going to get some USB-C socket boards and replace the USB-A male connector on the charge cable with a USB-C female socket and make a cutout for that. Basically to allow connecting a USB-C cable to the dock to help with cable management.
Another mod I’ve been thinking about is either using a different design or hollowing out this model and putting one of my 3,000 mAh batteries inside with charge and boost circuits to make it work like the Airpod chargers (e.g. charge the cradle, cradle charges the T1000e).
If you disable RX Boosted Gain and GPS, I’ve gotten 3 days and 7 hours out of mine at maximum.
Good to know! A full day is more than sufficient for my cases but good to know I can stretch it if need be :)
I would still turn off RX Boosted Gain. Just doing that saves a lot of battery and doesn’t affect your received sensitivity all that much.
I’ll try that.
In your uses, is the battery life measured while being connected over Bluetooth or just how long the device runs on its own? This is the first day I’m running it through its paces and after 3 hours, it’s down to 83% / 3.98V. That’s with GPS, RX boosted gain enabled, and connected to my phone via BT.
That’s with Bluetooth connected to my phone, with GPS off and RX boosted gain turned on. I got 2 days and 19 hours out of it. With RX boosted gain and GPS both off, I got 3 days and 5 hours.
Ok, thanks. I may leave all the bells and whistles enabled for this first rundown test, and do another one after with the GPS disabled, etc. I like the idea of having the GPS always on (with smart position enabled) but don’t really think it’s necessary while sitting at my desk in the office.
I do like the ringtone. But I think what’s even cooler is the ability to set your own ringtone through the config.
Yeah, I saw that in the docs but didn’t have a node with a “buzzer” until now so just kind of forgot about that feature. I think it uses the Nokia format if I recall correctly. I was just surprised the default notification tone was one I recognized. I may play around with different ones (would love to hear the classic Nokia tune again in all of its piezo glory).
Might also find a few I like and keep them in a text file on my phone to switch them up once in a while.
Wait you can do that?
Yup! Under the External Notification config menu there’s a section to program the piezo buzzer tone/delay sequence. I changed mine to be more of a chirp than a full ringtone.
