Link Quality & Smart Hops

MeshMonitor provides two complementary graphs for understanding the health and routing behavior of your mesh network connections: Link Quality and Smart Hops. Both are available in the Messages tab telemetry view and can be pinned to the Dashboard.

Link Quality

Link Quality is a real-time score from 0 to 10 that represents the reliability of communication with a node. It updates dynamically as messages are sent and received, giving you an at-a-glance view of connection health.

Quality Scale

Score	Rating	Description
9-10	Excellent	Optimal, consistent connection
7-8	Good	Reliable connection
4-6	Moderate	Adequate but may have intermittent issues
1-3	Poor	Unstable, frequent drops or high latency
0	Dead	Link is not functional

How It's Calculated

Link Quality starts with a base score derived from the hop count of the first message received from a node, then adjusts in real-time based on ongoing events:

• Stable or improved routing (+1): Message arrives with the same or fewer hops than before
• Degraded routing (-1): Message arrives with 2+ more hops than before
• Failed traceroute (-2): A traceroute request to the node times out
• PKI/encryption error (-5): Cryptographic validation failures indicate a serious link problem

The score is always clamped between 0 and 10.

Chart Details

The Link Quality chart displays:

• A blue line showing quality over time
• A colored fill area underneath using a green-to-yellow-to-red gradient
• Reference lines at quality 3 (poor threshold) and 7 (good threshold)
• An interactive tooltip showing the exact timestamp, quality score, and descriptive label

The chart title shows the node name and current quality score (e.g., "NodeName - Link Quality (8/10)").

Smart Hops

Smart Hops provides a historical view of how many hops your messages actually take to reach a node. Unlike the simple "hops away" count from NodeInfo (which is a single snapshot), Smart Hops analyzes routing patterns over time using a rolling 24-hour window.

What It Shows

The chart displays three lines:

• Min Hops (green): The fewest hops seen in the rolling window
• Avg Hops (blue): The average hop count across all messages
• Max Hops (red): The most hops seen in the rolling window

Why It Matters

Smart Hops reveals trends that a single hop count cannot:

• Is routing degrading? If min/max/avg are all climbing, the network path is getting worse
• Is the path stable? A narrow gap between min and max means consistent routing
• Are there intermittent issues? A wide spread between min and max suggests the network is finding different paths for each message, which may indicate an unstable relay node

Chart Details

• Data points are generated at 15-minute intervals, each representing statistics from the preceding 24-hour window
• Gaps in data (breaks longer than 1 hour) are shown as visual disconnections rather than interpolated lines, so you can see when no messages were exchanged
• A legend at the bottom identifies the three lines
• An interactive tooltip shows exact hop counts at each time point

Viewing the Graphs

Messages Tab

1. Navigate to the Messages tab
2. Select a node from the conversation list
3. Scroll down past the message history to the Telemetry section
4. Link Quality and Smart Hops graphs appear alongside other telemetry data (battery, voltage, etc.)

Dashboard

Both graphs can be pinned to the Dashboard for at-a-glance monitoring:

1. In the Messages tab telemetry view, click the star icon on either graph
2. The graph will appear as a draggable widget on your Dashboard
3. Dashboard widgets include a drag handle for reordering and a remove button
4. All dashboard charts respect the global time range selector

Settings

Telemetry Visualization Hours

Controls how much historical data is displayed in the graphs.

• Location: Settings tab
• Default: 24 hours
• Range: 1 to 168 hours (7 days)

Node Hops Calculation

Controls how the hop count is determined for the node list display, map marker colors, and Messages node details (separate from Smart Hops):

• NodeInfo packet (default): Uses the hopsAway value from the node's most recent NodeInfo broadcast. This is the standard Meshtastic behavior and provides a stable, consistent hop count.
• Traceroute length: Uses the shortest path found in traceroute results between your node and the target. Falls back to NodeInfo if no traceroute data is available.
• All messages: Uses the hop count from the most recent packet received from the node — any packet type, not just text messages. This includes telemetry, position, NodeInfo, text messages, traceroute responses, and all other packet types. The hop count is derived from the packet's hopStart - hopLimit fields, which indicate how many relay hops the packet actually traversed. Falls back to NodeInfo if no message hop data is available.

TIP

Smart Hops always uses actual message hop counts regardless of this setting. The Node Hops Calculation setting only affects the hop count shown in the node list, map markers, and message node details.

Data Sources

Both features use the messageHops telemetry type, which is calculated from each incoming mesh message as hopStart - hopLimit. This represents the actual number of relay hops the message traversed to reach your node.

Link Quality additionally factors in traceroute results and encryption error events to provide a more complete reliability picture.