The ThinkNode M5 got me into Meshtastic, and after carrying one around for a few weeks I started looking at what else could plug into the same network. Most of the answers point you at more dedicated nodes, which makes sense, but it also means committing to another single-purpose device sitting on a shelf if the mesh in your area never quite materializes. Elecrow sent me the CrowPanel Advance for Meshtastic for review recently, and that's exactly why it clicked: it's a Meshtastic node that doesn't have to stay a Meshtastic node.

The CrowPanel Advance 3.5-inch HMI from Elecrow is a normal-looking ESP32 development display with a touchscreen, a microphone, a speaker, and a battery connector. It also happens to ship with a swappable SX1262 LoRa module and Meshtastic firmware support. Starting around $35 directly from Elecrow, it's a way to get on the mesh without dedicating hardware to it, and if the mesh experiment doesn't take, you've still got a perfectly serviceable ESP32 touchscreen for the same kinds of projects where you'd normally reach for a Cheap Yellow Display.

It isn't a polished consumer node. This is the Meshtastic node for people who are not sure they actually need a Meshtastic node.

This is an ESP32 touchscreen that happens to speak LoRa

You don't have to use Meshtastic

What you're buying is an ESP32-S3-WROOM-1 board with a 3.5-inch IPS touchscreen, 8MB of PSRAM, 16MB of flash, and an integrated microphone and speaker. The screen is 480 by 320, capacitive, and reasonably bright at around 400 nits on the spec sheet. There's a battery connector along one edge and the usual collection of GPIO and a Grove-style 4-pin connector on the back. Strip the LoRa module off this thing and you'd have exactly the kind of ESP32 development display I've been building home lab dashboards on for the last year.

The SX1262 LoRa radio sits in a small daughterboard slot, with an 868/915MHz antenna in the box. If you don't care about Meshtastic, Elecrow advertises other modules in the same ecosystem, including Zigbee, Thread/Matter-related options, Wi-Fi HaLow, and Wi-Fi 6. You're paying a little extra for the LoRa path, but you're not left with a useless board if Meshtastic doesn't stick. At that stage, you're better off buying one of the regular CrowPanel displays, but at least this gives you the option to try out Meshtastic, too. Don't like it? Well then you don't have to keep using it.

You may be wondering whether this is actually a competent Meshtastic node compared to a dedicated unit like the Heltec V3 or the ThinkNode M5, and the answer is yes... for the most part. The radio side is built around the same SX1262 family used by plenty of Meshtastic hardware, so it's not starting from a compromised LoRa platform. The practical range will still depend heavily on the antenna, placement, enclosure, and regional frequency version.

"Meshtastic-ready" here does not mean it behaves like a finished handheld communicator. It means the hardware target exists, the LoRa module is supported, and the firmware can drive the screen, touch interface, and radio without you having to build that stack yourself. It's good enough out of the box and works, though, so you can buy this and never change the firmware if you're really that uncomfortable with it.

There's also the antenna. The included one is fine for basic testing, but if you want serious range, you'll want something better, and you also need to buy the correct frequency version for your region. In Europe that's 868MHz, in the US it's 915MHz, and getting that wrong will technically work, though you likely won't find anyone else on the same band. Oh, and it's also probably illegal.

Out of the box, you get the standard Meshtastic experience on the touchscreen, with a touch UI for messages, channels, and node listings instead of the e-ink display you get on the likes of the M5. The larger screen is genuinely useful when you're configuring the mesh or looking at a map of nodes around you, neither of which the ThinkNode M5 handles well on its small e-ink panel. It also makes the device usable at a glance from the other side of a desk, which the M5 absolutely is not.

If Meshtastic doesn't stick, it's still useful

Just use it like a CYD

The CrowPanel Advance supports LVGL out of the box, supports the Arduino IDE, MicroPython, and the usual collection of ESPHome integrations. You can technically repurpose some dedicated Meshtastic hardware too, but the CrowPanel is built for that kind of tinkering in a way most finished nodes are not.

In other words, if the whole mesh thing doesn't stick, or ultimately ends up not interesting you, or if you even just want to use this for something else for a while, you can repurpose the same board into a home automation dashboard, a 3D printer monitor, or whatever else the Cheap Yellow Display crowd has been building this year. I got mine up and running with ESPHome very quickly. That's not impossible on dedicated Meshtastic hardware, but it's much less compelling. A ThinkNode M5 is shaped around being a Meshtastic node; the CrowPanel is a general-purpose touchscreen first.

The microphone and speaker open up a separate set of options I haven't fully explored yet. Elecrow advertises voice recognition and text-to-speech as part of the "AI" branding, and the ESP32-S3 is capable of running smaller models locally, but most of the interesting work is going to involve hooking it into something heavier. I've been using a similar device as an ESPHome voice satellite for Home Assistant, so that should give you an idea of what's possible.

$35 makes Meshtastic feel less like a commitment

You still have a great ESP32-powered screen

The ThinkNode M5 I started with was a polished, finished product, retailing for $54. I'd still recommend it for someone who wants to just get on the mesh and start using it. The CrowPanel Advance sits in a different spot. At around $35 directly from Elecrow, it's noticeably cheaper than most dedicated nodes, and you get a usable touchscreen on top of that. The biggest downside is that there's no GPS on the board, so it isn't a great choice for the location-sharing side of Meshtastic.

You can also purchase an acrylic case for $2, though you can also opt to use it without one or 3D print a case yourself. There's also no battery in the box, just the connector, so you'll be supplying that yourself if you want it to run away from a USB cable for any length of time. Even once you add a battery, a backlit 3.5-inch IPS display isn't going to behave like a small e-ink node you can forget in a bag for days. For me, those are tradeoffs I'm fine with. There's not yet a huge Meshtastic scene here in Ireland (though it is growing!), so a device that can spend half its life as a dashboard and the other half as a mesh experiment makes far more sense than another sealed node in a drawer.

If you want a node to leave in a bag, mount somewhere, or use for location sharing, this isn't the obvious pick. Buy a purpose-built Meshtastic device with a case, GPS, and better battery life. If you want a desk node, a test node, or an ESP32 display that can join the mesh when needed, the CrowPanel makes far more sense.

The dedicated nodes still have a real place. A ThinkNode M5 is easier to live with, and the people running serious mesh routers aren't going to swap one out for an HMI board with a touchscreen on it. But the more ESP32 hobbyist hardware that happens to ship with LoRa, the more incidental nodes end up on the mesh, and the better the mesh gets for everyone already on it. And no matter what, if the mesh idea doesn't stick, then hey, I've still got a perfectly good ESP32 touchscreen.