Off-grid wired communication for horse farms, homesteads, and rural neighborhoods. RS-485 over buried Cat5e. No cell towers. No internet. No monthly fees. Works when everything else fails.
Hurricanes. Wildfires. Grid failures. The systems most people rely on are the first to fail. gh0stwave is the last one standing.
RS-485 differential signaling over buried Cat5e. Near-zero RF emissions. Works at 2,000+ feet. Automatic failover to backup pair if primary wire is damaged.
Overwatch and Command nodes add 915MHz LoRa for inter-property bridging. Half a mile to a neighboring homestead. No license required. No infrastructure needed.
No cloud. No MQTT. No subscription. No account to get hacked. Messages stay on your wire. Encryption and authentication happen at the packet level, not at a server somewhere.
LiFePO4 batteries. MPPT charge controllers. ASA enclosures. Conformal-coated PCBs. Industrial connectors. Designed for 20–30 years without replacement — not 3–5.
| Feature | gh0stwave | GMRS Radio | Cell / SMS | Meshtastic | Consumer Intercom |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Works without cell towers | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Private / encrypted messages | ✓ | ✗ | ~ | ~ | ✗ |
| Multi-node group messaging | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Reliable in RF-noisy environments | ✓ | ✗ | ~ | ~ | ✗ |
| License required | None | FCC GMRS | None | None | None |
| Monthly fees | $0 | $0 | $30+/line | $0 | $0 |
| Wired backbone option | ✓ (primary) | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ~ |
| Solar / off-grid power | ✓ | Limited | ✗ | ~ | ✗ |
| 20-year design target | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
Same firmware. Same RJ45 connector. Same buried Cat5e cable. The profile is set in config — not hardware.
gh0stwave is designed for people who can run conduit and crimp an RJ45. No electrician required for DIY kits.
Bury Schedule 40 PVC conduit 18–24 inches between buildings. Pull 23AWG 4-pair direct-burial Cat5e through the conduit. The wire carries RS-485 data, failover bus, 12V power, and ground — all through one RJ45 connector at each end.
Each node mounts to a wall with four screws. One Neutrik etherCON RJ45 cable connects it to the wire run. Termination resistors (120Ω) clip across pins 1–2 at the two physical ends of each segment.
Each node gets a unique NODE_ADDR (0x01, 0x02, 0x03...) and shares a NET_ID with all nodes in the installation. The network key is set once at install. Nodes announce themselves and begin communicating automatically on first boot.
Type on the keyboard. Select a scope: private to one node, local segment (your barn), your full installation, or neighborhood-wide. Press Enter. The message is encrypted, authenticated, and delivered over the wire — or LoRa if wire is unavailable — in under 100ms.
Wire fault on pair 1? Firmware auto-switches to pair 2 in milliseconds. Pair 2 also fails? Drops to single-wire 1200 baud. Wire completely gone? Falls back to LoRa. The display shows link health at all times. Annual maintenance takes under 30 minutes.
23AWG Cat5e. T568B color coding. Data, failover, power, and ground in one industrial connector.
Neutrik etherCON for barn/outdoor · Standard keystone jack for indoor
| Pin | Color | Signal |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | W/Orange | RS-485 Primary A |
| 2 | Orange | RS-485 Primary B |
| 3 | W/Green | RS-485 Secondary A |
| 4 | Blue | 12V Power + |
| 5 | W/Blue | 12V Power + (∥) |
| 6 | Green | RS-485 Secondary B |
| 7 | W/Brown | Ground |
| 8 | Brown | Ground (∥) |
Pairs 4+5 and 7+8 in parallel · ~14Ω round-trip at 500ft · voltage-safe at 12V DC · diode bridge + PTC 250mA on remote end
Specifically designed for the properties and challenges of Marion County and surrounding agricultural communities.
Main house to barn to manager's cottage. Gate entry alerts. Staff coordination across 100+ acre properties. Works through the noise from motors, solar inverters, and well pumps.
Grandparents' house to grown kids' property next door. Private messaging. Shared alerts. No app to download, no account to maintain, no monthly bill to argue about.
Link multiple homesteads via LoRa into a neighborhood communication network. Private messages between nodes. Group broadcasts to the whole neighborhood. No central server.
When Irma comes through and cell service goes down for three days, your gh0stwave is still running on solar. It was designed specifically for that scenario.
Nurseries, feed stores, plant farms. Coordinate staff across large properties without depending on walkie-talkies that everyone has to remember to charge and can be overheard by anyone.
No RF emissions on the wire. AES-128 encrypted. HMAC authenticated. A node that gets physical access to your cable cannot read your messages without your network key.
RS-485 is a shared bus — anyone who clips a MAX485 module onto your cable can physically receive packets. Encryption and authentication mean they can't read or forge them.
All payloads encrypted before they touch the wire or radio. RS-485 and LoRa both. Passive wire intercept yields only ciphertext.
8-byte truncated HMAC on every packet. Rogue nodes without the correct key are silently rejected — no error feedback to attackers.
16-bit rolling sequence counter per source node. Previously-seen counter values are rejected. Captured packets cannot be replayed.
Each node generates a keypair on first boot. Private messages encrypted to the recipient's public key. Node compromise doesn't expose the full network.
ESP32 hardware flash encryption enabled in production builds. Keys stored in NVS are encrypted at rest. Physical node capture doesn't yield keys via UART.
Firmware updates are signed. Nodes reject unsigned packages. Firmware tampering via UPDATE packet is cryptographically blocked.
Buy the hardware once. Run it for twenty years. Optional annual support plan keeps everything dialed in.
gh0stwave LLC
Ocala, Florida
Marion County · serving North Central Florida
Email
hello@gh0stwave.com
Phone
Available on request
DIY kits ship nationwide.
Full-service installs: Marion County and surrounding areas.
Annual support: anywhere we've installed.
gh0stwave LLC · Florida
Licensed contractor pending DBPR
DIY kits available now · no license required
gh0stwave.com