Whilst there are alternatives, one being Briar and there are others whose names I can't recall, it's not a flooded market, so I think it's worth some discussion.
Additionally, tools that allow communication and coordination without relying on internet or cloud-based services seem to be of increasing pertinence to the direction the world is currently going.
Re hype: that's just human reaction to any well known person's new thing. Just don't get caught up in it, discuss "thing" for "things" sake and move on.
Maybe I'm being overly critical. But it's nothing revolutionary or new, we've had Bluetooth mesh chat for a long time. In fact I vaguely remember seeing it as someone's a university masters project over 10 years ago.
I'm more interested in the lo-ra mesh, but that's probably because it feels more mysterious to me, as I have little understanding of radio networks.
Let's not even get started on the name (b*tch@).
But I must admit it is cool that it's open source. I'll keep a eye out for an android app
I'll ask more directly: What's the use case and/or value proposition for the average person?
I've heard about it a few times over the last 24 hours, and I'm relatively off social media, so that to me indicates a considerable buzz. But the only thing that gets headlines is "Jack did a thing!" And the readme is primarily jargon.
I can't speak for GP, but it's not clear to me _why_ it's a Really Big Deal.
For the average person, probably not much use. But we're in an interesting time where laptops and phones are ubiquitous and all of them have bluetooth. It being open source, and already ported to Android, is a bit special too. Seems like a coinflip whether it catches on, and if people start using it for concerts, festivals, group camps or whatever, then in a disaster it will already be there for people.
I feel like it probably has particilar applications, especially if seamlessly integrated, but I also can't but help feeling like there's a certain level of "protocol fatigue" for non-tech folks.
In my experience a lot of people dont really understand the distinction between WiFi and Cellular for example. Or maybe more relevant, SMS vs MMS vs RCS.
That's not to say it can't or won't work, but rather the tech is interesting but I imagine a lot of potential friction for early adopters, which seems (to my limited understanding) self defeating as it only works if there's a critical mass of users.
A side note, airtags + iphones are effectively the largest bluetooth mesh network in the world, and they are quite useful even though only coordinates are sent.
I meant useful in general. It's slightly off topic, but I think many people overlook the fact they are just a bluetooth mesh network as well.
Imagine one just as large as the airtag + iphone ecosystem but with messaging capabilities!
Would be cool to see one built into android + iphones but that will never happen. But a 3rd party could get so popular that it achieves somewhat close to that.
I'd imagine remote villages and towns could all install this and communicate with each community member very effectively.
> What's the use case and/or value proposition for the average person?
Weird take. If it doesn't make sense to you, maybe it's just not for you (yet). That's not an indictment of either you, the project, or other people being excited about it. Not everything has to be targeting the lowest common denominator on launch.
A platform to host virtual races for fundraising events. Think Race Nights from the 90s/00s. Currently working on this with my brother, as we've both been out at risk of redundancy.
Had our first event over the weekend. Now we're focusing on marketing to local social clubs, charities and school groups.
Got a long list of future features and improvements, but this is a solid MVP. Made in react with redux, Pixi.js and prisma with sqlLite for a db.
This is so cool. Years ago I was at a maker conference and there was a tent hosting an Algorave (https://algorave.com/) which introduced me to the whole scene of live coded music. Really niche subject but very interesting.
