Offband Meshcore 1.6.0

Offband Meshcore 1.6.0

The first stable release of the 1.5.0 line and the production successor to 1.4.0. One
of our largest releases: a full contacts overhaul, stock-compatible config and identity
portability, region radio presets, self-healing contact sync, and a deep pass on
Bluetooth reliability. Over 100 changes since the 1.5.0 beta.

Contacts, reworked

• Tap a contact shared on a channel to add it, from an inline Add Contact card
  (#610), and share your own contact into a channel from the + picker (#611).
• Contact QR: show your contact as a QR and scan someone else's to add them,
  reachable from the contacts menu or the key field (#629).
• Add by public key: type or paste a key (#628), or add from a key alone before
  any advert arrives (#627).
• Cross-client with stock MeshCore: Offband parses and emits the stock
  contact-share URI, so contacts move both ways between Offband and stock (#625, #626),
  and pasted shares in our own channel format are accepted too (#611).
• Each contact shows how far its identity is confirmed (#630), and names are
  handled correctly on the wire (no truncation mid-character) (#636).
• Channel senders: add, view, or block a sender from an avatar tap or long-press,
  with clear messaging when a name is unknown or an add fails (#565).

Bring your setup with you

• Stock-compatible config export and import: move a radio's full configuration in
  and out in the exact format stock MeshCore uses, wired into Settings
  (#572, #573, #574, #575, #576).
• Identity export/import for your connector, with an auto-add hop limit (#578).

Radio presets

• A preset picker grouped by region and labeled by source, crediting Liam Cottle /
  MeshCore for the upstream presets (#727, #728, #729, #731).
• Apply a preset's path hash to a companion, observer, repeater, or room server
  (#730, #735, #649), with the picker built into repeater and room-server settings
  (#734). Region matching accounts for the path-hash mode, so a USA radio is not
  mislabeled as Canada (#747).

Sync that heals itself

• Offband detects a short contact sync and recovers it with paced, capped
  re-syncs and per-key checks, then shows a banner with the recovered count and which
  contacts are genuinely gone (#762, #763, #764, #674).
• A short or unreadable sync never overwrites your saved contacts (#671, #673), a
  silent contact stream ends on its own after 30 seconds (#672), and only one contact
  request runs at a time (#672).
• Apply a remote radio setting temporarily (tempradio) (#662), and manage a
  sensor like a repeater (#745).

Bluetooth reliability

• The composer is no longer locked by an unreported BLE MTU. Offband reports the
  negotiated MTU on Linux (#717) and Windows (through a vendored BLE plugin
  with live MTU updates) (#686), and lifts the floor that locked it on web (#718).
  If a link genuinely cannot carry a message, it explains why instead of showing a
  dead field (#684).
• Sturdier connects and disconnects: bounded GATT-133 retry with readable errors
  (#698), an unconfirmed disconnect now retries and warns instead of being swallowed
  (#697), and leaked GATT handles are closed (#696).
• USB serial no longer drops bytes: mutexes initialize before the reader runs, and
  each callback drains fully (#710, #711).

Delivery and messaging fixes

• Delivered direct messages are no longer marked failed: send correlation adopts the
  radio's own ACK hash (#581).
• Late repeater replies go to the app log, not your screen (#589).

Also new since 1.4.0 (the 1.5.0 beta groundwork)

• An Experimental section unlocked by a 7-tap on the Build row; disabling it clears
  every experimental toggle (#509, #553).
• OKIMesh CoreScope (Experimental): per-packet observer counts from OKIMesh's
  CoreScope service. It needs forthcoming Offband firmware and stays inert until then,
  and now cleanly distinguishes not-found from unreachable (#549, #550, #678).
• An About screen in its own Settings category (#526, #527), top-of-screen
  toast notifications announced to screen readers (#638), and a refreshed web
  identity (#608).

Known issues

• On Windows, BLE Disconnect can still leave the radio held by the OS until you replug
  (#688).

Offband is open source and always will be. If you would like to help keep it going,
there is a donation page at https://offband.org/donate. Thank you for being part of it.