Wandering With Pride · Miami pilot 2026
WanderSafeMesh is a community-owned emergency mesh in development — 100 solar nodes designed to deliver safety information, emergency alerts, and crisis contacts to LGBTQ+, Deaf, disabled, undocumented, and unhoused residents when apps, cell towers, and power grids fail. Miami pilot launching 2026.
All images are concept renders of the planned hardware. Physical units are not yet built — Miami pilot launches 2026.
The gap
During Hurricane Ian, Miami-Dade's cell towers overloaded in hours. Hurricane Sandy knocked out 25% of U.S. cell towers. The IPCC projects extreme weather events will double in frequency this decade. Miami-Dade already has 250,000 residents living below 3 feet of sea level, with 21–54 inches of rise projected by 2070 — making offline resilience infrastructure not a backup, but a necessity.
During an ICE sweep, a cell-connected app is a liability. When you're Deaf, unhoused, or don't speak English, official emergency systems were never designed for you. WanderSafeMesh is.
The mesh
Each node is designed to run AES-256 encrypted LoRa mesh firmware — connecting to neighbors without internet, cell service, or power. Icon-first e-ink display for Deaf users. Audio mode for blind users. Three tactile buttons. Panic button routes to community responders — never police.
The hardware
3D-printed white-ASA enclosure (thermal-protected for Florida sun). Heltec WiFi LoRa32 V4 (ESP32-S3 + SX1262, 915 MHz). LiFePO4 6 Ah battery. Multi-face thin-film solar (~4 W total across top + both sides). IP67 weatherproof. Designed to mount at ADA height on Little Free Libraries across Wynwood, South Beach, Overtown, Liberty City, and Little Havana.
| Component | Spec |
|---|---|
| Radio | LoRa 915 MHz · AES-256 mesh · ~1.2 km urban range |
| MCU | Heltec WiFi LoRa32 V4 · ESP32-S3 · SX1262 |
| Battery | LiFePO4 6 Ah · 72h offline · 330-day reserve |
| Solar | Multi-face thin-film ~4 W · top + both sides · orientation-agnostic |
| Display | 2.13″ e-ink (GDEH0213B72) · sunlight-readable · 0 mW standby |
| Interface | 3 nav buttons + panic button (flip-guard) · passive buzzer audio |
| Sensors | BME680 · PMS5003 · HC-SR04 · AS3935 |
| Enclosure | IP67 · white ASA (UV + thermal) · 3D-printed · STL open source |
| Security | ESP32-S3 secure boot v2 · flash encryption · panic-button rate limit |
| Cost | $144 / node · CC BY 4.0 firmware |
The sensor suite
Every sensor must serve a directly observable community need. Microphones, cameras, and passive Bluetooth/WiFi scanners are permanently off the component list — not as policy, as a hardware bill of materials choice.
±0.5 °C, ±3 % RH, ±1 hPa, plus indoor-air-quality VOC sensing. A pressure drop above 3 hPa in three hours triggers a storm advisory. Heat index above community threshold triggers a heat alert — the same metric NIOSH uses for outdoor worker exposure. The barometric channel also gates flood alerts (no false alarms during routine Miami rain).
Designed for a continuous PM2.5 grid across five Miami neighborhoods once the pilot is deployed. EPA EJScreen calibration candidate. Thresholds set so PM2.5 above 35 µg/m³ will trigger an advisory; above 55 µg/m³ an unhealthy alert. Vented PTFE-membrane port keeps rain out, air in.
Distance-to-water at 5 cm accuracy. Above 50 mm baseline triggers a flood advisory; above 200 mm triggers an evacuation alert. Privacy: only neighborhood-aggregate flood data ever leaves the city — node-level levels could reveal who's sheltering in place.
1–40 km range, 14-step distance algorithm. With three nodes detecting the same strike, TDOA analysis is designed to localize within ~1–2 km — building toward a community-owned urban lightning map. Lightning is the #1 cause of weather-related outdoor deaths in Florida — Pride, Calle Ocho, and beach events sit in the bullseye.
The covenant
Trust isn't a policy. It's a hardware constraint. A community member who walks past a node, has no phone, speaks no English, and has never heard of WanderSafe should be able to confirm the device isn't surveillance — within 30 seconds, without help from us.
The 10-year roadmap
Miami isn't the destination — it's where we build and prove the model. Once the pilot demonstrates the architecture in Miami's flood corridors, ICE-vulnerable neighborhoods, and queer community network, what emerges is a replicable, open-source, community-sovereign resilience infrastructure that any marginalized-population organization can deploy in any city.
Target: 100 nodes · 10 neighborhoods · 15 LFL hosts. Funding pursuit: Knight Cities Challenge ($200k application). Partner discussions in progress with SAVE Miami and other LGBTQ+ orgs.
Planned expansion: Detroit, Philadelphia, Long Beach, New Orleans. ~400 additional nodes. FEMA BRIC application path identified.
Target metros: NYC, LA, Chicago, SF, Seattle, Austin, Portland, Atlanta. ~2,200 nodes. Funding paths identified: NSF CIVIC, HRSA Health Equity. First peer-reviewed paper as a Phase-3 milestone.
+16 additional cities. Indigenous communities, farmworker regions, public housing, reentry communities. Same architecture, city-config adapted.
Long-term target: 100 cities · ~10,000 nodes · ~1,500 paid community ambassadors — a first-of-its-kind community-owned national environmental safety network.
Open by design
Miami is the pilot, not the limit. The hardware spec, firmware, and STL files are planned for CC BY 4.0 release — so anyone, anywhere, can build a node, run their own neighborhood mesh, and (when authentication ships) bridge into a wider community of safety nodes. Even one node on a single block helps that block. Density compounds: there's no minimum threshold to start.
~$144 in off-the-shelf parts. No special tooling beyond an FDM 3D printer and a soldering iron. The full bill of materials, STL files for the IP67 enclosure, and firmware are planned for CC BY 4.0 release after the pilot firmware lands. Documentation aimed at any community group — not just engineers — with build cards in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole.
WanderSafeMesh sits on top of Meshtastic — the global open-source LoRa mesh community. Governance is informed by NYC Mesh, Toronto Mesh, and Freifunk. Where infrastructure permits, gateway nodes can bridge to The Things Network for wider LoRaWAN reach without locking the local mesh into any one ecosystem.
The hard problem with "anyone can build a node" is rogue nodes. The planned trust model: cryptographic device attestation at mesh join (ESP32-S3 secure boot v2 + flash encryption), node whitelisting for critical-safety channels, community-reported revocation propagated mesh-wide, and tiered access — local mesh open to anyone, critical safety channels require attested devices. Anyone can build; the network maintains integrity.
A solo node on a single block still helps that block. Two nodes within ~1.2 km mesh together. Ten nodes in a neighborhood become resilient against any single-node failure. The architecture scales bottom-up: every additional builder, every additional block, every additional city makes the coverage stronger and the network more useful. No minimum threshold to start. No central permission to ask.
Spec releases, firmware, and STL files will be tracked at github.com/WanderingWithPride once the pilot firmware is ready.
Common questions
Three doors
WanderSafeMesh is funded by Wandering With Pride Inc. (501(c)(3), EIN 99-3467744). Contributions to support hardware deployment are tax-deductible.
SAVE Miami, LFL stewards, neighborhood ambassadors, city emergency management. We fund the hardware; you anchor the community trust.
Partner inquiry →Phase 1 (~$200k target) funds the Miami pilot. Phase 2 (~$1.5M target) is the proposed four-city Knight expansion. Phase 3 has a FEMA BRIC funding pathway identified. Diligence packet on request.
Funder inquiry →Solder a node. Print an enclosure. Translate a display string. Steward an LFL. The hardware is open source and the work is real.
Volunteer →