4 ms·

Isnt the range of Bluetooth pretty much the range of a loud yell?

redgridtactical 7mo ago
Haha fair point. In open terrain you get maybe 50-100m which I agree, not far. In practice it's more useful than it sounds though. You don't need miles of range when the point is "where did my buddy go 5 minutes ago." And if they walk out of range their last position and heading stick on your map as a ghost marker so you're not totally blind or left guessing.
- jdyer9 7mo ago
  This comment got me thinking that it might be worth using their second-to-last location to try and derive some vector. Obviously that's super informative as you already know the edge of the map they left, but maybe it's useful?
  - redgridtactical 7mo ago
    [dead]
- sneak 7mo ago
  Yeah the range of BLE makes this an order of magnitude less useful or practical than a $50 LoRa transceiver.
  - redgridtactical 7mo ago
    All true, but the tradeoff is zero additional hardware cost and zero setup. For a family hike, small team, or a hunting party staying within a few hundred meters of each other, pulling out your phones beats buying and configuring radios for everyone. That said, BLE Long Range (Coded PHY) pushes it to 400m-1km and is on the roadmap for the next version. I'm also planning a Meshtastic bridge so if you already own LoRa hardware, the app can route through it for multi-kilometer range. Best of both worlds: works without hardware, works better with it. Would love some feedback if you ever try it out!
schobi 7mo ago
Well... I have a hard time imagining to get location by yelling "where are you? " "by the trees!" It really sounds immensely useful to know last location (while they were still in range). Use case: I was out, picking wild lingonberries in the forest with a group of ~10, some kids. At a "secret" location, with everyone wandering off in a direction they see more of them. Shouting did not help much.
- redgridtactical 7mo ago
  If you ever do get the chance to use, let me know what you think!

Haha fair point. In open terrain you get maybe 50-100m which I agree, not far. In practice it's more useful than it sounds though. You don't need miles of range when the point is "where did my buddy go 5 minutes ago." And if they walk out of range their last position and heading stick on your map as a ghost marker so you're not totally blind or left guessing.

jdyer9 7mo ago
This comment got me thinking that it might be worth using their second-to-last location to try and derive some vector. Obviously that's super informative as you already know the edge of the map they left, but maybe it's useful?
- redgridtactical 7mo ago
  [dead]
sneak 7mo ago
Yeah the range of BLE makes this an order of magnitude less useful or practical than a $50 LoRa transceiver.
- redgridtactical 7mo ago
  All true, but the tradeoff is zero additional hardware cost and zero setup. For a family hike, small team, or a hunting party staying within a few hundred meters of each other, pulling out your phones beats buying and configuring radios for everyone. That said, BLE Long Range (Coded PHY) pushes it to 400m-1km and is on the roadmap for the next version. I'm also planning a Meshtastic bridge so if you already own LoRa hardware, the app can route through it for multi-kilometer range. Best of both worlds: works without hardware, works better with it. Would love some feedback if you ever try it out!

schobi 7mo ago

Well... I have a hard time imagining to get location by yelling "where are you? " "by the trees!" It really sounds immensely useful to know last location (while they were still in range). Use case: I was out, picking wild lingonberries in the forest with a group of ~10, some kids. At a "secret" location, with everyone wandering off in a direction they see more of them. Shouting did not help much.

redgridtactical 7mo ago
If you ever do get the chance to use, let me know what you think!