CicadaTAK

Merbella Studios

About this app

CicadaTAK turns your phone into a tactical team-awareness display for places
with no cell service and no internet — backcountry, disaster areas, large
properties, search grids, event perimeters. It is the companion app for CicadaTAK mesh nodes: open-source, sub-$200 radio
gateways you build yourself (full instructions at cicadatak.com). Nodes form a
self-healing 900 MHz HaLow mesh with miles of range, and every phone
connected to a node shares one live tactical picture.

LIVE TEAM MAP
• Every teammate's position updates live on the map, with callsigns, colors,
and breadcrumb trails
• Offline map layers — download street, topo, and aerial imagery to the mesh
and use them with zero internet
• Drop markers, draw geofence zones, measure distance and bearing
• Mesh health overlay shows every radio link, color-coded by live throughput

ENCRYPTED TEAM CHAT
• Text messaging across the mesh, end-to-end encrypted with your team
passphrase
• Share photos from camera or gallery — delivered over the mesh, never through
a server
• Delivery receipts: one check sent, two checks delivered
• Canned quick replies for one-tap messaging on the move

PUSH-TO-TALK VOICE
• Real-time PTT voice to the whole team — live streaming audio, not recorded
clips
• Works with the screen locked
• Optimized voice codec keeps audio clear even on marginal links

MESH AWARENESS
• Node list with signal strength, battery state, and per-node hardware status
• Animated topology view — your whole mesh drawn as a live map-oriented graph
• One-tap node ping with round-trip time and link quality

LONG-RANGE LoRa BRIDGE
• Nodes with LoRa hardware bridge to Meshtastic devices, extending reach to
inexpensive handheld radios
• Three privacy modes, from open interop to fully dark
WORKS WITH TAK
• Nodes can bridge positions to ATAK/TAK clients on the same network via
Cursor-on-Target

YOUR DATA STAYS YOURS
• No accounts, no sign-up, no cloud, no analytics
• Everything travels phone → your own radio hardware → teammates' phones
• We never see your location, messages, photos, or voice — there is no server
to see them

IMPORTANT
• Full functionality requires CicadaTAK node hardware. Without a node, the app
runs in Standalone Mode: your GPS position on the map, offline-map browsing,
and every screen navigable — mesh chat, PTT, and team positions activate when
you connect to a node.
• CicadaTAK nodes operate in the 902–928 MHz license-free ISM band, legal in
the US, Canada, and Mexico. No radio license required.
• Build your nodes at cicadatak.com — open-source hardware and firmware.

What’s new

• Import your own maps. Load .mbtiles and .kmz files onto your node, or straight onto your phone
with no node needed.
• Offline map downloads are far faster. Hours became minutes.
• Fixed downloads failing with "Unknown layer".
• Choose your LoRa protocol: Meshtastic or MeshCore.
• Teammate dots move smoothly now instead of jumping.
• Push-to-talk tells you why it can't transmit.
• The setup wizard is clearer, and you can now exit it.