Offband offband-v1.2.0-beta1

Adds MeshSmith Photon‑1W support (both MCU flavors) plus a NimBLE build fix, on the
MeshCore 1.16.0 base. Shipping in -beta until the Photon‑1W is bench‑verified on hardware.

Added

• MeshSmith Photon‑1W support — ESP32‑C6 + nRF52 (#193, #194) — vendors MeshSmith's MIT Photon
  variants (meshsmith_photon_esp32c6, meshsmith_photon_nrf52; Seeed XIAO ESP32‑C6 / XIAO nRF52840 +
  Ebyte E22‑900M30S 1 W radio) and wires all roles into CI + the release pipeline. ESP32‑C6 needed
  minimal MeshCore‑consistent base edits (antenna‑switch virtuals, protected _gps_serial, NimBLE dep);
  nRF52 needed none. Not yet bench‑verified — vendored drivers kept for round‑1; review findings
  tracked as bench checkpoints on #193/#194.

Fixed

• Xiao_S3_WIO_companion_radio_usb build (#89) — exclude SerialBLEInterface.cpp from the USB
  companion env (it has no BLE), resolving the NimBLEDevice.h regression from the #288 NimBLE migration.

Changed

• CLAUDE.md: no‑upstream‑merge policy (#197) — Offband does not merge from upstream MeshCore; the
  upstream remote stays fetch‑only for reference. Keep MeshCore nomenclature/coding‑standard consistency
  for clean rebasing.

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Which file do I download?

File	What it is	When to use it
*-merged.bin (ESP32 — Heltec V3/V4, XIAO)	Full image — bootloader + partition table + app in one, flashed at 0x0 after a chip erase. Self-contained, works on a blank chip.	First install / clean setup. In a web flasher this is the "Full Firmware" option.
*.bin (ESP32)	App only — flashed at the app offset (0x10000); the bootloader must already be on the chip.	Updating an existing node — OTA / "Update Only." Keeps the device identity + WiFi/MQTT config.
*.uf2 (nRF52 — RAK, T-Echo, XIAO nRF52)	Complete self-contained image.	First install and updates — double-tap reset, then drag-drop onto the USB drive. (nRF52 has no merged/app split.)

⚠️ ESP32: the app-only *.bin will not boot if flashed at 0x0 — use *-merged.bin for a fresh install. A full erase / "Full Firmware" wipes the device's identity + saved config, so use it only for a first install or recovery, never a routine update.

What's Changed

• docs(#192): Photon-1W (MeshSmith) support design-of-record by @Strycher in #195
• chore(#197): CLAUDE.md -- record no-upstream-merge policy by @Strycher in #198
• fix(#89): exclude SerialBLEInterface.cpp from Xiao_S3_WIO USB companion by @Strycher in #200

Full Changelog: offband-v1.1.0...offband-v1.2.0-beta1