Heltec HT‑H7608 Halow Mesh not working as expected

Hi!

I am setting up an 802.11s mesh but it is not behaving as expected in a multi‑hop scenario. Here is my setup:

  • Mesh gate (MG): This is either a Heltec HT‑H7608 set up as a Mesh gate through the UI wizard. It runs a DHCP server to hand out IP addresses to all devices on the network
  • Laptop:** It is connected to the Mesh Gate via ethernet no other router or upstream network.
  • Mesh Point 1 (MP1): This is a Heltec HT‑H7608 router. It is in range of the Mesh Gate via Halow.
  • Mesh Point 2 (MP2): This is my custom hardware. It uses a static IP. It is basically a camera that transmits video via Halow. It uses AsiaRF’s Halow module, and is controlled by an i.MX8M-Mini running Yocto.

What works

  • If MP1 and MP2 are both in range of the Mesh Gate, they associate directly to MG and everything works.
  • I can stream video from MP2 to the laptop via MG without issues.

What fails

When I move MP2 so that:

  • MP2 is out of range of MG ,
  • but MP2 is in range of MP1

then:

  • MP2 associates to MP1 (shows up in MP1’s associated stations list),
  • but MG cannot ping MP2 and no traffic is forwarded through MP1.
  • On MG/MP1, MP2’s MAC shows up, but the UI never learns an IP for it (“?”)

I have tried a lot of different settings and configurations, but I am unable to get it to work. Perhaps my understanding of 802.11s is flawed, or somehow the hardware does not support it.

Any help is much appreciated!