From 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.
All 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.
Interesting ... 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?
For 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.
I 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.
I 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...
Most people are 5ft tall!
But most pockets are only about 32" off the ground. Maybe they should sell hats that it attaches to.
Interesting ... 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?
For 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.
Interesting ... 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?
As I understand it (I am in the outer gotenna circle) it will do some sort of store and forward mesh network-y thing.
I 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.
It'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.
So 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.
I 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).
Is 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!
Daniela, goTenna co-founder here, "Jason Greengrocer" is actually a real person in my phone I contact about once a month ;)
Does 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?
From 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.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…
The larger antenna would certainly suggest the lower frequency.
Interesting ... 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?
from 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/pag…
goTenna 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... ;)