Recipe: livestock & equipment tracking mesh

Problem statement

A grazing operation runs ~50 head of cattle across 800 acres of mixed pasture, lease ground, and timber. Cellular coverage is spotty. Existing commercial GPS-cattle-trackers either require cell data plans or fail on partial coverage. Equipment (trailers, water tanks, solar pumps) is also occasionally stolen or moved. A single [[off-grid-living|off-grid]] mesh that handles both is preferable to two separate systems.

Architecture

[Cattle collars × 50]              [Equipment trackers × 10]
  LILYGO T-Beam                       LILYGO T-Beam
  GPS + LoRa + ESP32                  + tamper-detection switch
  Meshtastic firmware                 + larger battery (~5,000 mAh)
  flexible solar pad                  + flexible solar
  rugged collar housing               + magnetic mount
       │                                    │
       └─────────── all relay for each other ──────────┐
                                                       ▼
                                             [Farm-hub gateway node]
                                                LILYGO T-Beam
                                                connected via USB to
                                                Raspberry Pi 5
                                                  Mosquitto + MQTT bridge
                                                  Home Assistant
                                                    map UI · geofence alerts

How Meshtastic delivers in this case

• Every collar relays for every other collar — if 5 head wander into a hollow with no line-of-sight to the farm, but 1 head is on the ridge, all 5 stay reachable.
• Position broadcasts every 30 minutes (configurable, longer = better battery).
• No infrastructure — no [[lorawan|LoRaWAN]] gateway, no cellular plan. Just nodes.
• Range at 915 MHz: 5–15 km hop in flat open country; 1–3 km in heavy timber. Multi-hop extends to network-wide.

What’s tracked per node

• Position (GPS lat/lon, accuracy, fix quality)
• Battery voltage and SOC
• Activity classification from IMU (cattle: lying / standing / grazing / walking; equipment: stationary / moved / tampered)
• Mesh-routing state (which neighbors heard this node last)

Geofence and alert logic (Home Assistant)

automation:
  - alias: "Cow outside pasture"
    trigger: zone(cow_collar_07) leaves "north_pasture"
    action:
      notify: "Cow #07 left north pasture at 14:32 — current position attached"

  - alias: "Equipment tracker moved unexpectedly"
    trigger: state(trailer_42_activity) becomes "moved"
    condition: time(20:00 - 06:00)  # nighttime only
    action:
      notify: "Trailer #42 is moving at night — possible theft"

  - alias: "Low battery on collar"
    trigger: numeric_state(cow_collar_07_battery, below: 3.4)
    action:
      notify: "Cow #07 collar at 25% — schedule swap"

Cost

• T-Beam board: $35
• Collar housing + flexible solar + 18650 + protection PCB: $30
• Per-collar: ~$65. 50 collars = $3,250.
• Equipment trackers: ~$80 each. 10 trackers = $800.
• Hub gateway node + Pi: $130.
• Total: ~$4,200 for full [[off-grid-living|off-grid]] 50-head tracking + 10 equipment trackers.

What this recipe doesn’t address

• Veterinary attachment of collars — sized and fitted by a working stockperson; collar must allow growth and not chafe.
• Moisture-sealing the electronics for cattle-mouth and weather exposure.
• Regulatory considerations vary by jurisdiction; verify radio licensing for sub-GHz LoRa where deployed.

See also

Auto-generated from this entry’s typed relations: frontmatter, grouped by relation type so the editorial signal isn’t flattened.

• Combines: [[meshtastic]] · [[esp32]] · [[gps-rtk]] · [[imu-mpu6050]] · [[solar-charge-controller]] · [[lithium-bms]] · [[home-assistant]]