Totem Compass Sets 25-Hop Mesh Network Record at Electric Forest, Proving Offline Friend-Finding at Festival Scale

Over 1,200 attendees used Totem’s screen-free friend-finding wearable across the sprawling Double JJ Resort, marking one of the company’s strongest real-world technical performances to date.

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Totem, Inc. today announced a major technical milestone following Electric Forest 2026, where Totem Compasses helped attendees stay connected across the massive Double JJ Resort.

The four-day festival presents a challenging real-world environment for a communication mesh network. Unlike more concentrated festival environments, Electric Forest attendees spread across an unusually large and dynamic venue, with users straying over 1km from their groups—a 40% increase in distance compared to previous major festivals like EDC Las Vegas.

Despite the increased dispersion, Totem delivered its strongest peer-to-peer navigation performance to date, powered by the company’s new Version 4.3 firmware and a record-breaking 25-hop mesh network.

“Electric Forest was the ultimate proof of concept for our latest software optimizations,” said Carter Fowler, Founder and CEO of Totem. “With Version 4.3, we saw our mesh network reach a record-breaking 25 hops, up from our previous peak of 14. We plan to push that even further in the months to come as we seek a world-record hop-count for a communication mesh.”

The milestone marks a major step forward for Totem’s Unity Mesh Network, the company’s custom-built peer-to-peer communication system designed specifically for dense, complex real-world environments like music festivals.

Unlike traditional LoRa-based mesh systems, which are generally optimized for lower-frequency messaging, Totem’s network was built for frequent location updates across crowded, constantly shifting environments. At Electric Forest, that architecture helped the network reach a record-breaking 25 hops—more than three times the hard maximum of 7 hops supported by Meshtastic, a widely used open-source LoRa mesh platform, and far above its default setting of 3.

That distinction becomes especially important at festival scale, with Meshtastic’s published guidance noting that networks with more than roughly 60 devices in close proximity can experience delayed delivery and congestion.

The Electric Forest milestone comes on the heels of growing third-party validation for the Totem Compass. Music industry tastemaker The Festive Owl recently published a positive Totem Compass review on Reddit after field-testing the device with his group at Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. Summarizing the experience as “mostly good, very little bad, and zero ugly,” he noted that Totem “came in handy more than once,” saved him “a lot of time — and phone battery,” and helped his group reconnect “every time” when cell service got spotty or friends wandered off.

Totem's growth continues to accelerate, with the company surpassing $4 million in revenue and raising over $3 million from global investors. The brand has built an audience of more than 600,000 followers across social media, generating more than 700 million organic views reaching more than 5% of the world’s population.

About Totem:

Totem, Inc. is a Tennessee-based startup building the world’s largest self-sustaining communication network. Since launching in early 2024, Totem has rapidly grown from an idea into a bona fide global movement. Founded on the belief that no one deserves to be lost, Totem is guided by four core values—Love, Unity, Simplicity, and Beauty—as it seeks to usher in a new era of human connection around the world.