this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
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You can make one yourself, see Meshtastic.
It wouldn’t work over long range though unless it had a lot of users.
Aren't mobile phones just radios that communicate with towers? Could a smartphone app accomplish this?
Yeah but if you are using towers it isn’t decentralized.
I mean instead of using the radios to communicate with towers, use them to communicate with each other. Don't know if the phone's cellular radio could be used but certainly WiFi direct would work?
You can but signals can only go so far and the earth is round so you need a mesh network with a lot of users to make it work.
Yup. People in rural areas could probably set up powerful radios to connect cities. Crossing oceans might be a problem.
Found an app called Briar that does this sort of thing for messaging.
There are apps to do this using Bluetooth, but no audio iirc. They were used in Hong Kong. I have no sources because I read it on the internet a few years ago, lol
That's exactly what I was envisioning, thank you! I wonder if radios in smartphones (cellular module or wifi direct) could be leveraged to do the same in densely populated areas. Could there be a meshtastic app for phones? Free, decentralized mobile phone calls.
Seems like there is an app called Briar that does this for messaging. Not sure if it does voice calls.
I doubt that Bluetooth and wifi antennas on phones are going to be great at long distances. Text is going to be a much better bet as it needs less bandwidth and doesn’t have to be received in real time (so you can store and remit messages later).
That makes sense. I saw another mesh app that lets you transmit voice messages, so it's not real time.
Did you find Meshenger yet? It's not exactly what you're after as it still relies on a local wifi network for comms, but it's one of the closer apps I've found to what you describe.
That said, what's the app you found that lets you transmit asynchronous voice messages? Sounds kinda cool!
Ah cool! The app I found is White Mouse, but it says it's limited to a 100 meter radius so I wonder if it's truly mesh.
Thanks for the reply! I'll have to give that a look!
Honestly if you're interested in this stuff I'd encourage you to get a radio license. You'd probably be interested in repeaters, satellites, and HF, but you might also be really interested in stuff like APRS (which is sort of a giant radio mesh net). I don't know what country you're in, but usually licenses are really cheap and just require you to pass a relatively easy (with some studying) multiple choice exam. The hardest part is usually just figuring out where you can take a test (at least in the USA tests are run by volunteers, so you have to do a little bit of searching to see when they do them in your area).