A Guide to Setting Up txTenna

The newest innovation from the Samourai developers is txTenna, an app which utilizes the Gotenna Mesh radios to send transactions even when you are offline. While the tech itself is cool, it can be a hassle to set it up. This article will take you through step by step in setting up your very own offline Bitcoin wallet.

Setting up your phone for txTenna:

Download both txTenna and Samourai wallet from the Playstore.

Must have bluetooth and location/GPS turned on.

The initial pairing process is the most tricky part to get right. The steps are:

Force stop all other txTenna from the settings and turn off all GoTennas.

Force stopping txTenna will differ for different Android phones but these steps are for stock Android 8.1.0

1. Enter Your Settings App

2. Select Apps and Notifications

Turn off your Gotenna if it not already off. To do so, press and hold the single button on your GoTenna until the light is off. To check if it is off, press the button once quickly. If turned off successfully, there will be no light blinking. If it is on, the light will blink once (or three times if the GoTenna is in relay mode).

Next, go into the txTenna app and turn on one of your GoTenna Meshes and filp back and forth between the Networking page and the main page. This allows you to check to see if your GoTenna has connected to the txTenna:

When you go to the Networking menu and come back to the main screen, your GoTenna should start blinking if you are connected (doesn’t matter how many times it blinks).

If the app or device is still not working properly after reproducing these steps, these might be some of the reasons why.

1. You had your first txTenna and your GoTenna Mesh turned on. You must force stop your txTenna app from the settings and turn off your GoTenna except for the one you are pairing.

2. You had your GoTenna app turned on.

3. If your txTenna app is crashing upon receiving a transaction, your transaction is most likely bad (ex. a stale UTXO).

To send a transaction with all of your txTenna and GoTenna Meshes turned on, you make a transaction as normal and then click on the “Broadcast with TxTenna” option. There is another way of doing it which is:

1. Click on “Show QR Code”

2. Click on “Copy To Clipboard”

3. Go into the txTenna app

4. Click on the “+” icon on the bottom right

5. Click on “GoTenna Mesh”

8. Click on “GoTenna Mesh”

If everything is working ok, it should look like this.

That’s it! Now you have your own offline Bitcoin wallet! If you could not get it to work, don’t give up and try again. The pairing process is a bit tricky but it will be well worth it when you do not have to rely on the internet for your Bitcoin transactions.

And if you want your own GoTenna to try this out, you can pick up a pair right now through Billfodl by going to this link.

Originally published at billfodl.com.