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GoTenna – Send and receive messages even when you don’t have service
- dexcs 12y agoGreat device, great idea! Please allow orders from within the EU... That would be awesome!
- kfullert 12y agoInteresting ... does this do any kind of store and forward or relaying? Say I send a message to a friend who happens to be out of range, but there was another GoTenna user who neither of us know, but who is in range of us both, will it relay the message via this 3rd party (encrypted) or is it purely a direct connection between sender --> receiver?
- tijs 12y agofrom the fAQs i gather that it sends from one gotenna to one or more recipient gotennas only: "Your smartphone will send the message to your goTenna, which will then shoot it out, via long-range radio waves, to the intended goTenna(s). At the other end, the exact same thing happens, in reverse: the recipient goTenna sends your message over BTLE to the smartphone app its paired with." https://gotenna.myshopify.com/pages/faqs https://gotenna.myshopify.com/pages/faqs building an ad-hoc network with these things would be kind of cool though. DIY city networks anyone...
- daniper 12y agogoTenna is an ad hoc reconfigurable network in that you can create your own network (1:1; groups, 1:all; all:1) but we can't currently mesh due to FCC regulations. So we went with long-range instead, since meshing is most useful in dense, short-range situations. We're on it though... ;)
- sitkack 12y agoThis could be earth changingly huge if you open source your designs and make one with wifi/ethernet. Store and forward push to talk messages. You could charge for access to internet side of the store and forward system. Maybe attach cryptocurrency to the messages to pay for routing across the POPs. Are you using the TI chips?
- daniper 12y agoThe platform possibilities are endless. Our dev kits will be ready soon: http://bit.ly/1oRwBkI http://bit.ly/1oRwBkI
- UweSchmidt 12y agoFor now the chances of finding a third GoTenna user is quite low. In the future though this could be an alternative private Internet. A BitTorrent client could be a hit.
- chrisBob 12y agoI think you are over estimating the bandwidth involved. They don't state much about the wireless protocol, but I am betting you don't want to send much more than a text message to get that range.
- lighthazard 12y ago> via long-range radio waves Which means that, no, they probably can't do seriously large amounts of data, but a picture (and definitely texting) can be sent through radio waves without much data retention issues.
- daniper 12y agogoTenna's transmission rate goes up to 19,200 baud
- p4bl0 12y agoHave you heard of https://projectmeshnet.org/ https://projectmeshnet.org/ ?
- decktech 12y agoAs I understand it (I am in the outer gotenna circle) it will do some sort of store and forward mesh network-y thing.
- robotresearcher 12y agoNot at these frequencies. It's prohibited by the FCC. See some explanations from an insider above.
- daniper 12y agoWe want to do that, but FCC regulations don't enable meshing (currently) on the bands we're using (151-154 MHz, aka the MURS band). We considered releasing a 900 MHz device that the FCC allows to mesh but then you only get, if you're lucky, up to 0.5 km range and it has to be line-of-sight. So we went with MURS because you can get greater range and don't have to be line-of-sight; the propagation characteristics are better down at MURS. Also, when we asked 1000 people (including testers) what they preferred -- a long-range MURS device or a short-range meshing device -- about 8 of 10 picked the former. So that's why the goTenna device you see today is our first release!
- jrockway 12y agoHow often are you getting non-line-of-sight propagation with MURS?
- daniper 12y agoMost of the time. We live in NYC and have gotten anywhere from 0.5 mile to 3.5 miles range here, depending what part of the city you're in. There's nearly no such thing as LOS in a city unless, say, you're in a skyscraper ;)
- jrockway 12y agoAh, I'm just surprised that buildings ended up mattering when you were deciding between 150MHz or 900MHz. While people like to complain about the frequency getting higher and propagation dropping off (especially related to 2.4GHz and 5GHz wifi), I haven't found a good paper that guarantees that's the case. Anecdotally, I can receive a 5GHz signal in my office in Manhattan from a radar in Floyd Bennett Field, 12 miles away, with buildings in the way. Similarly, inside my apartment, I have much better luck with 440MHz radio communication than 144MHz communication. (Ground floor, so not that great either way.) Being limited to 4W EIRP in the 900MHz ISM band probably played more of a role? Anyway, you might want to find these guys: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7981431 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7981431 The combination of your product with their technology could be quite interesting. Also, follow up question: does your protocol attempt to recover signals from below the noise floor?
- jbverschoor 12y agoOh that's pretty cool.. It's like a walky-talky but for data
- niels_bom 12y agoI slid the range slider all the way down as I'm in the, notoriously flat, Netherlands. Most of the time I'm in a city, Amsterdam, and then I'd have a range of 0 miles. Is that correct? That does not sound very useful to me then. Can someone confirm that this is correct?
- adaml_623 12y agoI think their slider is a bit misleading as if you have the slider at 0ft then the range is 0 but if you have it at 5ft then the range is up in the miles. I think their point is that if you need to use this then you may need to seek slightly higher ground... or some stairs...
- rwbt 12y agoVery cool. I hope this becomes at least a niche success and the price comes down in future versions.
- umsm 12y agoAt $150 for two devices, it seems like a good deal for something that you would use once or twice a year. If the price goes up (as the website suggests that it is currently being offered at a 50% off promo), then I doubt it will become a mainstream device.
- alexchamberlain 12y agoI love it... I wonder if there will be some kind of base station available? I'm thinking about Scout camps, where we turn up on a campsite with a few hundred kids, and often use radios to talk between important adults. The range would need to be a few miles, so WiFi is out of the question. Too expensive mind, but very very cool!
- antr 12y agoI can see myself using this during my mountain/road biking trips with friends, although the form format doesn't look very practical on the back pockets of cycling jerseys.
- jasiek 12y agoWhat band does this operate in? Do I need a license to operate one in the EU?
- th0br0 12y agoSeems to be shipping to US & Canada only for now.
- jrockway 12y agoDoes anyone have details on the RF layer? What band does it use? What emission type does it use? What bit rate does it send at? What happens when 1000 of these are in the same place at once?
- nitinics 12y agoFrom what I am reading, it runs on Multi-Use Radio Service (MURS). i.e. 151-154 Mhz spectrum. Excerpt From https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-02-139A1.pdf https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-02-139A1.p... Under the revised rules, MURS units are: • Permitted to have detachable antennas; • Permitted to have external antennas up to 6.1 meters (20 feet) above a structure or 18.3 meters (60 feet) above the ground, whichever is higher; • Permitted to have a total power output (TPO) of up to two (2) watts (instead of two (2) watts effective radiated power); • Not permitted to be used as cordless telephones, radiofacsimile (imaging), or for continuous carrier mode operations; and • Not permitted to be used for repeater operations Without a repeater, I would assume it is very difficult to imagine a hop-by-hop network?
- bravo22 12y agoThe larger antenna would certainly suggest the lower frequency.
- mng2 12y agoThey also explicitly forbid store-and-forward operations.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 12y agoUnless it is very fast store-and-forward?
- cdcarter 12y agoUnfortunately, both acting as a repeater live and in SaF mode are prohibited.
- chrisBob 12y agoThe part I think is missing is a connection back to the cell network so that you can give people in more remote locations the ability to text the rest of the world using this as a link. I don't see the 2-user walky-talky being that useful, but I would happily leave this and an extra phone in my car if it meant getting text functionality as I hike out 20 miles.
- p4bl0 12y ago> The part I think is missing is a connection back to the cell network so that you can give people in more remote locations the ability to text the rest of the world using this as a link. While reading their FAQ I thought of that, and if the API is open sourced or reverse-engineered, it shouldn't be too difficult to write a smartphone application which would act as a relay between to goTenna and the phone network (for instance if the relay-phone receives on the goTenna a message from A saying "SMS <num> foo bar" it could relay the "A says: foo bar" via SMS to <num>.
- peaton 12y agoIt could be a whole lot simpler than this. (And a whole less secure.) In high school I had a server running that scanned email for a keyword and my cellphone number; I didn't have a smartphone. So I texted a keyword and some code to my email. Then my server would read the email, see it contained the keyword, then interpret the rest of the code I sent and execute it. This would be insanely easy (and not too secure) to implement on Android for instance.
- colinbartlett 12y agoFrom the FAQs: "Use our free app to type out a text message or share a location." Ugh, it's a lot less magical than they make it seem in the video.
- devcpp 12y agoAll it takes is replacing the actual phone dialer app (which AFAIK can only be done in AOSP-based distributions) to make it work transparently. You'd also have to add a phone number broadcasting service to make it work with phone numbers though, but I can see the potential. I'm much more skeptical about range, battery or security concerns.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago> You'd also have to add a phone number broadcasting service to make it work with phone numbers though, but I can see the potential. I'm much more skeptical about range, battery or security concerns Have the app sync to a registry online when connectivity is available, and keep the key-value table locally (phone->deviceID).
- neals 12y agoLet's build our own cellphonenetwork, where we all have something like this and it's like a giant p2p network!
- beejiu 12y agoSo it's just a walkie talkie that has bluetooth? You can buy decent walkie talkies for £20, I'm not what paying £100 is getting me.
- zizzer 12y agoFrom the few details [1] I've been able to find it seems like it's unusable in the UK anyway as it uses 151-154 MHz, which is a licensed band. If they moved it up into the 433ishMHz unlicensed band their range claims would all have to be revised. [1] http://gigaom.com/2014/07/17/no-signal-gotenna-has-a-messaging-gadget-that-will-work-in-the-middle-of-nowhere/ http://gigaom.com/2014/07/17/no-signal-gotenna-has-a-messagi...
- daniper 12y agoWe'll expand internationally later!
- decktech 12y agoI guess the main difference is that walkie-talkies don't connect to your phone, or share text or GPS data. They also don't mesh network (automatically).
- GeorgeMac 12y agoIs it me or is their a guy in the video getting baked? Not only that it is around the security part where he is getting in contact with his mate "Jason Greengrocer" about getting more. That part makes me happy!
- junto 12y agoI think they are quite deliberately pointing out that dealers can communicate with their users in private, outside of law enforcement spying on them [Use case A1].
- GeorgeMac 12y agoI like the fact that can be publicly advertised as a unique selling point.
- lighthazard 12y agoAlso, if they're not encrypting the radio transmission, easily intercept-able.
- daniper 12y agoAll transmissions are end-to-end encrypted, unless you use the "shout" or "emergency" features which are, by definition, messages to everyone within range of you.
- drdaeman 12y agoFor those who care about security, is there an article to read for further details on that?
- jmyaunch 12y agoHi! I'm on the mobile development team here at goTenna. We're taking advantage of the Bluetooth LE standard encyption with is AES-CCM. More on that here: http://bit.ly/1teKWvG http://bit.ly/1teKWvG For encrypting the data as it's sent between gotennas we're using 1024 bit RSA. Not sure what level of detail you'd like.. but here are a few things to get you started! RSA itself: http://bit.ly/1kDlTgP http://bit.ly/1kDlTgP Cryptographic Services: http://bit.ly/1teLhPb http://bit.ly/1teLhPb More on CDSA (see above articles first): http://bit.ly/Ug2CLt http://bit.ly/Ug2CLt Much of our approach is fairly standard!
- liotier 12y agoHam packet for non-geeks !
- emilv 12y agoNo voice? That lost all of my interest. So now I need to tap out a message on my expensive, somewhat fragile smartphone with dirty fingers while losing all sight of the road for a minute. Instead of a sturdy walkie-talkie where I can hear the voices of my friends, talk efficiently in real sentences and I can look where I'm going all the time.
- daniper 12y agoI get it's not for everyone, but what we learned as we developed this is that more people wanted asynchronous data comms as opposed to real-time voice. And when I say "more," I mean like, 75% of testers preferred the former. From a networking perspective, as well, it makes our ad hoc reconfigurable network more scalable if we're focused on short-burst transmissions that are, technically speaking, delay-tolerant. This means that even if you're at a huge event with tons of people using goTenna, even if a gajillion of them press "send" at the exact same femtosecond, all the messages can get through in a matter of seconds if not milliseconds.
- emilv 12y agoThat is a good point. But then I'm even less sure where I would use this. Definitely not when out hiking in the woods. I still believe I'm with the 25% that didn't prefer asynchronous messaging.
- maxsilver 12y agoI think they are legally forbidden from doing voice by the FCC, on the ultra low band spectrum they're using. (see http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/multi-use-radio-service-murs-0 http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/multi-use-radio-service-murs... search for "you can not make telephone calls") If you want walkie-talkies, there's another entire band dedicated to unlicensed voice calls - http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/family-radio-service-frs http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/family-radio-service-frs You could ask them to make a dual mode device. MURS for text/sms (and greater distance), and FRS for voice and picture messages (with less distance).
- 12y ago
- carsonreinke 12y ago`Pending FCC approval.`
- scolson 12y agoI wonder how hackable these will be, or what kind of bandwidth you might be able to push. I could see putting one at my home and one at my office to create a poormans wireless bridge.
- decktech 12y agoIt's 2 meter VHF, very low bandwidth. Useful for GPS and text messages only. An Email bridge might be pretty cool, but I'm not sure of the exact speed.
- daniper 12y agoYes, we're focused, with this first product, on asynchronous, low-bandwidth data comms. Through our R&D for the past 21 months, that's what most testers and people wanted most, especially when they don't have service otherwise.
- wehadfun 12y agooff topic but a simpiler website would have been nice. All the video and huge pictures of half dressed people is too much to browse for work.
- thenipper 12y agoThis is pretty interesting. I work for an NGO and something like this looks really useful for people working in the field to allow some sort of simple communication/location when you don't have service, or it is super expensive.
- threeio 12y agoIf your looking for a wider scope project for your NGO, you might want to consider something more like the Mesh Potato http://villagetelco.org/mesh-potato/ http://villagetelco.org/mesh-potato/
- daniper 12y agoHey, we're working with all kinds of disaster relief nonprofits and the like. Would be great to hear from you: partnerup@gotenna.com
- konstruktor 12y agoThis is a consumer device that adds a smartphone as a single point of failure. There's a good reason why handheld or car mounted radios have been quite popular with NGOs all over the world. They're robust, reliable and simple. And in many cases, NGOs can get access to radio bands with more interesting transmission characteristics.
- rtrsqrrl 12y agoReminds me of the Cybiko: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybiko http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybiko
- arnorb 12y agoThey should maybe pause the video in the masthead when the overlay video is playing.
- rglover 12y ago"When you're off-grid you can remain connected." Lol, humans.
- wglb 12y agoLooks interesting. What radio service and frequencies does it use?
- wglb 12y agoAh. We are now at a device that is Bluetooth LE-enabled that works on the 151-154 MHz range from http://www.cnet.com/news/gotenna-creates-cell-network-out-of-thin-air-anywhere-on-earth/ http://www.cnet.com/news/gotenna-creates-cell-network-out-of... So this is essentially a mesh network or at least all independent nodes?
- spacefight 12y agoSounds more like a point to point communication but not a mesh to me.
- wglb 12y agoYes, and she answered the question in a different thread.
- smackfu 12y ago"Early supporters get 50% off for a limited time." I always wonder about this kind of pricing structure. It seems like selling your product for half of what you plan to eventually charge for it gives you pretty useless data on what the proper price should be. You may sell a ton at $100, but people perceive that as expensive, and then you might sell zero at $200.
- giarc 12y agoI imagine they are profitable at 50% and therefore if they don't sell any at full price, they could come back down to 50% off (or somewhere similar).
- gcb4 12y agoi will be taking round A for a direct marketing company for affluent consumers via the gotenna network. :)
- calebm 12y agoPotential cool application of GoTenna: communication with a robot without having to pay for a data plan.
- jrockway 12y agoUh, just use Zigbee or something similar?
- umsm 12y agoZigbee: "Outdoors with line-of-sight, range may be up to 1500 m depending on power output and environmental characteristics"
- jrockway 12y agoI'd buy one of these GoTennas before you get too excited about the range. "Oh, but it's VHF so you can get Es propagation and talk to Europe from the US!" Good luck with that.
- Florin_Andrei 12y agoZigbee is very low power and much higher frequency. You have to be within a couple dozen meters. The goTenna thing is much higher power and lower frequency. It reaches at much greater distance, and can even go a bit around small obstacles (it's 2m band, so don't expect miracles, but still, it's not 100% line of sight).
- robotresearcher 12y agoYou're right. I could use a good radio. Downsides: the Bluetooth local connection is wasteful, the bandwidth is going to be pretty low, and I can't immediately see if they have an open developer license. Wireless is very hard. If you've spent much time working with it, it's amazing how good wifi and cellphones are.
- dmm 12y agoGet a ham radio license and you'll have access to lots of spectrum and the ability to use higher power levels, for non-commercial use.
- ikonst 12y agoThis can be significantly better than walkie-talkies. In poor reception, sometimes you can't manage to deliver even a simple message coherently (especially since, to be understood by a fellow human, you need reliable communication in real time for the duration of your entire message). But usually, you just want to get a message across. You want something like morse code, not voice. Delivering a short textual message, not in real-time but "instantly", with redundancy, error correction and retries, serves me better than walkie talkies. (Heck, you can deliver a short audio fragment, but I don't see too many people using the "send voice" feature in Whatsapp, don't know about you.)
- daniper 12y agoPreach on! :) Yes, we think we're better/more convenient than walkie-talkies for a few reasons. 1) We integrate with the smartphone you already have on you. 2) The asynchronous communication, as you said, allows for less miscommunication. Plus, with delivery confirmation receipts you KNOW it didn't just disappear into the void somewhere, and was actually received by your intended recipient(s). 3) You can direct the message specifically to discrete individuals or groups. You don't need to worry about being on the same channel or hear other people you don't know yakking. 4) You can share your location on detailed offline maps.
- mightymu 12y agoWhat 'offline maps' are available? Something built into the gotenna app, the device's native mapping app, or something else?
- daniper 12y agoThe app comes with a vector map of the entire world. You can then download specific areas to get complete detail (i.e. down to hiking trails and city blocks) before you head out -- depending which maps you want you'll download via small country (e.g. France) or state (e.g. California). All goTenna maps are free!
- tbeseda 12y ago
- giarc 12y agoThese would be great for vacation travel. I sometimes travel with another couple and we often split up during the day. I prefer not to pay for cell service in these countries (high cost, I'm on vacation, can check email later, don't want to be tempted to spend time on my phone etc) but this would be nice since it restricts it to messages to the other couple only and location info. Very tempted to buy a pair.
- ramigb 12y agoThat seems wonderful, maybe in the future this could have an SDK where developers could use the device for something other than messaging, for example long range car remote! or any type of long range RC.
- daniper 12y ago100%!!! Our dev kits will be available soon: http://bit.ly/1oRwBkI http://bit.ly/1oRwBkI
- zeeed 12y agoWhat happens to a message if it's not received? Will it be retransmitted or is it lost? Do I know if my message has been received by my contact (1:1) or anyone (1:all)?
- daniper 12y agogoTenna will retry sending your message a few times, and then if it still doesn't go through, will alert you that it hasn't been delivered. At that point you can try again manually. There are delivery confirmation receipts for 1:1 messaging but not for groups as that's a networking nightmare (e.g. not even Whatsapp or iMessage does that).
- nathanb 12y agoLengthier but more accurate title: Send and receive messages to other GoTenna devices within range via alternate RF-band communications even when you don't have service. A text-mode walkie-talkie.
- AndrewKemendo 12y agoCan these things share accurate telemetry data so you can add a geospatial data layer? That would be great because if they are communicating anyway getting relative location should be reasonable and make keeping track of folks much easier while not having to rely on LOS. edit: I see the maps feature but I also see the text of the messages asking where someone is, so that is what spurred the question.
- tlrobinson 12y agoA consumer-friendly, open version of amateur radio's APRS network would be really cool. This seems like the first step, though I don't know if they intend to open the protocol. Also, 50 mile range sounds great, but that's under "ideal" conditions, which happens roughly never. I'm curious what the range would be in the real world.
- Florin_Andrei 12y ago> 50 mile range sounds great, but that's under "ideal" conditions, which happens roughly never. I'm curious what the range would be in the real world. In that graphic, change the elevation to 6ft and you get much more realistic ranges. The default elevation is 500ft (top of a small hill). I'm a HAM operator, that device's frequency is just a bit above our very popular 2m band. The ranges they indicate at more realistic elevations sound about right for me, for a data connection at 2W.
- peatmoss 12y agoWeren't police bands (previously) right about there? My license lapsed a few years back, but if memory serves, some people would do some minor surgery on their 2m radios so they could tune in to police bands just above 2m. I assume police all use some fancy digital microwave comms now.
- tlrobinson 12y ago"some people would do some minor surgery on their 2m radios so they could tune in to police bands just above 2m" Probably, but you could also just buy a police scanner from Radio Shack, or even a $10 TV tuner that can be used as an SDR: http://sdr.osmocom.org/trac/wiki/rtl-sdr http://sdr.osmocom.org/trac/wiki/rtl-sdr In fact I think those cheap Boafeng radios will even transmit on those frequencies. Of course that would be highly illegal. "fancy digital microwave comms now" Microwave radios are only really used for point-to-point links, as the shorter wavelengths require line-of-sight. They are using digital trunking systems (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trunked_radio_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trunked_radio_system), and encryption in some cases.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 12y ago@Daniela I hope you aren't exhausted by all these, but X would be cool comments. If not: A walkie-textie would be cool, something less expensive and fragile (as emilv said) than a smartphone with a keyboard instead of a touch screen. Is there a serial interface to gotenna?
- daniper 12y agoI believe you're asking if there's a user interface to goTenna? If so, not in the current device. The UI is your smartphone -- the point is to conform to consumer behavior (i.e. the way you already text on your phone).
- freels 12y agoFor longer periods of outdoor use, a low-power built-in text interface would be useful. Especially if the battery lasts longer than my phone's.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 12y agoIs there an alternative to bluetooth-LE for talking to the gotenna?
- daniper 12y agoOur first prototypes worked over the audio jack (à la Square) but from both performance and form factor perspectives, having it work wirelessly over BLE worked better. That being said we can work audio and other data interfaces into later products for sure, we're just going MVP route ;)
- efkv 12y agoCan we get rid of this trend of having such media-heavy product pages? The HTML5 header video is nifty, but the page is ~20MB to load. Is that really necessary to describe a product?
- badman_ting 12y agoIt's not like I disagree but discussing this aspect of every new thing that comes along is rather tiresome.
- ErikRogneby 12y agohow hackable will this be? Will the end user be able to turn up the signal strength and gain? (similar to what I can do on my wifi access point?)
- daniper 12y agoOur open SDK is coming soon. You can't really mess with signal strength and gain (especially bc of FCC regulations)
- mwjackson 12y agoIs goTenna crowdfunding on Indiegogo or is this a scam? If it is, how can we get it taken down? https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gotenna/x/8214478 https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gotenna/x/8214478
- daniper 12y agoWow, this is definitely a scam.
- somberi 12y agoAsking to learn. I travel often all over India and most parts of Africa. I have consistently received cell phone signals in 90% of the places. Local sim cards are easily available and the prices are ~20cents per message. In this context, I wonder the need of such a device. In fact having yet another device to charge is a bigger concern. I can see situations where this is helpful, but I think it is in the minority.
- napoleond 12y agoI have not been to Africa or India, but considering that it's easy to find areas of North America without cell phone coverage I find it very difficult to believe your assertion about 90% coverage. Even in cities, it seems from the comments here that there is some appeal to communicating "off the grid" as it were.
- ismail 12y agoHis assertion is true, i have traveled to 4+ countries in africa, and live in one. I have yet to be without signal in all my travels. You would need to go really remote to find a place without signal. Even sparsely populated areas, backwaters are covered. The reason is communication infrastructure was pretty bad here, hence we leap frogged and mobile is primary means of communication. You also have the other challenge of copper being stolen, hence in some areas the only way for you to get comms (internet/phone) is via mobile.
- com2kid 12y ago> I have yet to be without signal in all my travels. You would need to go really remote to find a place without signal. In contrast, I can travel ~20 minutes outside a major metropolitian area in the US (Seattle) and be without cell service. Heck I often am without cell service when I'm hiking. Then again I'm using a provider (T-Mobile) which is known to only work in metro areas!
- somberi 12y ago
- zw123456 12y agoIt's a walkie talkie that uses a BT audio connection to your phone to use the mic and speaker of your phone as the mic and speaker for the walkie talkie, brilliant as many people will think it is magic cellular. Save yourself a lot of money and just buy a walkie talkie with it's own regular mic and speaker.
- faraday 12y agoWow. I just need to figure out how to relay messages from my Ooma phone to one of these devices for forwarding on and good riddance to cell provider services.
- wnevets 12y agowhat is old is new again. Whats next, pens and paper as a new way to send messages without a phone?
- foolinaround 12y agoif this is available on some kind of rental plan, there is a huge opportunity....
- ryanmarsh 12y agoSay you are just 1 mile from a friend, at 151Mhz the fresnel zone is 72ft tall. If you are both at equal elevation on flat land then 50% of the signal is going to be absorbed by the ground. How exactly does this scenario work? Source: I used to build outdoor medium distance (~1mi) wireless data networks with 900Mhz and at 1 mi the fresnel zone is roughly 30ft tall so we would put our antenna 20ft in the air. The awesome thing is we could shoot through a mile of forest but only if 60+% of the fresnel zone was not occluded by the ground. Edit: I should also add that I would have loved something like this in Iraq. Next to keeping soldiers fed, coordinating with adjacent units (read: not shooting at each other) on foot during a mission is about the biggest challenge there is.
- TD-Linux 12y agoThe propagation characteristics of VHF are substantially better than 900MHz. I've used voice radios in the VHF band in urban Minneapolis, and have been able to easily surpass a mile of range. I'm surprised they didn't choose a lower frequency still. In addition, using something like DSSS, a low data rate, and retransmission ability will probably help a lot for this application.
- daniper 12y agoAgreed. Substantially better. Our first goTenna prototypes worked at 900 MHz band and we could barely get 0.5 km (NOT MILES) line of sight. With the goTennas that are now out for pre-order, we've gotten anywhere from 0.5 miles to 3.5 miles in NYC (where we're based), to give you an idea -- and there's little that is as non-ideal for RF propagation than a metropolitan city.
- spiritplumber 12y agoSo my guess is, it's a bluetooth radio and a XBee. Nice? I think? What surprises me is the size of it; I've deployed exactly this (minus the spiffy packaging, admittedly) for barge tracking applications since 2008, and the whole thing ended up being roughly the size of an early 2000s palmtop computer, so good job on that! The schematic is trivial: a xbee XSC (we used XStreams at the time) with a decent antenna coupled with any serial bluetooth module. The whole thing runs on 3.3V with high tolerances, so a single lithium cell is enough to power it without regulation. If you can't do meshing for legal reasions, do a transparent blind forward -- for short messages that you don't mind a delay for, it works out well, and the FCC (and the coast guard) have been OK with it. If you want my design contact me at www.f3.to
- TD-Linux 12y agoNo. It is in the 150MHz (VHF) range, which is probably one reason why it is as long as it is. I assume they rolled at least a semi-custom radio solution.
- daniper 12y agoYes, we've built everything from scratch! It's been fun/impossible. :)
- spiritplumber 12y agoVery cool! I'm messing with low bandwidth satellite communication, and well, looks like you're way ahead of me :D
- scottshapiro 12y agoI'm most excited for the mountaineering / backcountry application in the short term but as critical mass develops in urban areas, there could be an interesting ecosystem that develops around this even without repeater functionality. Anything from people discovery like Tinder to b2c interaction like OrderAhead could build on top of a comm stack like this.
- GrinningFool 12y agoOfftopic: Yet another site that uses a ton of scrolling, space, and images to provide information that would fit in a couple of paragraphs. It's true that a picture can speak a thousand words. On the other hand a few dozen words can make up for six giant pictures that convey little information. Note to mention the giant video that greets me. Has this actually proven effective, as it becomes more and more common? I don't know about most, but I will seldom watch a product video during my day - I don't have time or patience to wait for speed-of-speech delivery of information. </rant>
- Angostura 12y agoAgreed. I simply couldn't be bothered - particularly as I was already trying to scroll down past the huge video to find content before the page had finished loading, leaning to page-jumping hilarity. I gave up almost immediately and came to visit the comments to find out what it was.
- ender89 12y agoGoTenna + Mesh networking = go f### yourself ATT
- Sami_Lehtinen 12y agoThey say that you can take it anywhere. But is it legal to use anywhere? It's not using any worldwide ISM band, so I assume they're bit lost with this topic too. So you can take it anywhere, but you can't use it legally everywhere.
- merpherpderp 12y agoLooks like a show stopper in Canada; http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/smt-gst.nsf/eng/sf10822.html http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/smt-gst.nsf/eng/sf10822.html