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Meshtastic: mesh telemetry interval vs local client metrics

Meshtastic distinguishes two related ideas:

  1. Mesh (LoRa) telemetry interval: The value you configure for the telemetry module / device metrics (for example 1800 seconds for a 30-minute mesh broadcast cadence). This controls how often the radio sends those metrics over the mesh.

  2. Local-to-app refresh: When a client is connected (Bluetooth, USB serial, or Wi-Fi to the device), the firmware often still delivers device metrics to that client about once per minute so local dashboards and apps stay reasonably fresh. That behavior is not the same thing as your mesh telemetry interval.

So you can see self telemetry (battery, voltage, channel utilization, etc.) arriving in Mesh Client roughly every 60 seconds while the configured interval on the radio still reads 1800 s or longer. That is expected: the short cadence is for the connected client, not necessarily for every LoRa packet on the mesh.

What you’ll see in Mesh Client

  • The Radio and Module panels show the configured mesh/module interval.
  • Live or diagnostic views may still update device metrics from your own node on a faster cadence when the link to the device is up, because the firmware pushes those updates for local use.

Official documentation

Meshtastic documents the telemetry module and device metrics behavior here:

https://meshtastic.org/docs/configuration/module/telemetry

Refer to that page for authoritative semantics; Mesh Client’s UI copy summarizes the distinction for users who might otherwise assume the on-screen refresh rate must match the configured interval.