If you spend time watching Meshtastic YouTube videos, you’ll notice that a lot more YouTubers feature the Lora T-Beam device. However, you’ll notice that I favor the Heltec V3 (although I do have a T-Beam).
When I purchased my first two Meshtastic devices, they were both the Heltec V3 boards. It was because they came in a two-pack for roughly the same price as one T-Beam. Over the weeks that I’ve been using them, I feel very comfortable working with them. Flashing them with Meshtastic is stupidly simple, and they just work.
The T-Beam just works as well, but for me, it came down to the form factor. You’ll notice that the T-Beam is considerably bigger. It doesn’t fit in any pocket like the Heltec does, and that was a pain point. Additionally, whoever thought it would be good to put the antenna right in the center of the long side wasn’t thinking end user use cases – Most people want to drop one of these in pocket like I do, or at least in a backpack since portability is one of the selling points. The antenna coming out of the side tends to snag on corners of pockets, get hung up on other cables in my bag, and I’ve had a few scares that I might have broken it clean off.
The Heltecs, on the other hand, run a small antenna wire from the node to the antenna, which means that I can replace antennas a lot more easily, and I can also choose my own way of mounting the antenna to whatever it is that I’m attaching the board to.
Also, just being smaller means that I can mount (and already have) a small LiPo hobby-grade battery since it has a 1.25 JST power connector for just such batteries. The T-Beam has an 18650 battery mount on the rear of the device, but that adds significant weight and bulk to the board. Granted the 18650 provides a higher runtime, but the 950mAh LiPo battery on the Heltec V3 provides 8 hours of reliable up-time, and I always have a phone powerbank in my bag anyway to recharge with. If push comes to shove, my Samsung S23 also can provide power to the Heltec since it is capable of charging other devices from its onboard battery. Barring any real emergency, this is sufficient for day-to-day use, and I’m extremely happy about the setup.
The one thing that the T-beam does have that the Heltec does not is onboard GPS. this means that the T-Beam can get its own GPS position rather than relying on your phone to transmit its GPS to the Heltec. From my experience however, it’s not that big a deal as both phone and T-Beam GPS locators are often accurate within 5 feet.