what happens when the networks go dark.
doesn’t happen very often thou right?
you have backup batteries for your phone but what about connectivity?
what happens when you have no cellular or wifi?
you’re just left holding an expensive brick of a comms device! :)
gotenna.com dropped on my radar a year or so back when i saw their kickstarter campaign, at the time i thought it was a great idea but i was still a bit jaded with all the fake promises of kickstarter campaigns so i gave it a wide birth, not because of them but because of crowdfunding campaigns in general because they seemed to be taking stacks of money (think ICO’s) and the product would either never appear or the money get sent back to people (in some cases they wanted more money to send you the product!) it was a bit of a clusterfuck of pr over actual fact.
fast forward however to 2017 and it looks like gotenna have a new product on the way with the gotenna mesh, an upgrade of their original system that instead of point to point communication (which is still cool and i’d like to have that as an emergency backup on my backpack) it uses the mesh networking approach - i did notice that they are using 1w UHF radio instead of 2w VHF and they have lost a mile instead of increased range with the new device. i can only presume that the new one is more energy efficient or something.
either way, the idea of the meshed networked device is pretty cool because instead of point to point it means you can have many people meshed together being relay stations, passing on your message to the person it was intended for, it’s all encrypted as well so that’s a nice feature. you can do location sharing and everything has delivery confirmation so you know it got through or not - i can certainly see myself playing with a stack of the mesh networked ones.
static powered, solar, fixed, outdoor possible?
the mesh networking unit looks kinda cool, a little rounded pebble slab with a little loop on the top, i presume for putting on a bag or a rucksack, meant to be outside of a bag or jacket at least i expect and the battery life is supposed to be twenty four hours. i’m interested to know if you can keep the unit always charging or at least always powered — hooking up a big external battery in my backpack (which i would have for backup anyway) to it to keep it going way passed a day, permanently powered if you wish — i’m waiting to hear back if this is possible or not as this opens up some interesting ideas.
hyperlocal mesh networked customers, clients and offers
imagine for a minute if you have say ten of these units and a big long road or even say a concentrated town centre area, if you could cover easily a mile range with one of these units and make sure you cover all the dead spots, maybe asking restaurants or flat/home owners to have the device positioned in a reasonably high place — a back channel if you will from special deals, happy hour, emergency channel if power or connectivity spikes or brownouts were an issue, maybe for building out a network of advocates around specific topics - trades people you could call on that were part of the network, funded by crypto so you bought these for you’re local collective — always having a backup mesh network in case cell towers are blocked or go down, side stepping the usual methods of suppression.
they even have a PRO model. .. ooooo tactical! :)
goTenna Pro | Revolutionizing tactical comms
5 watts of juicy power and it’s IP68 rated, well ok then, now we are talking for all those off grid types in new towns and cities travelling across europe, perfect for working on that restoration project across a few miles right? you can tell that they guys love what they have build when they put the line. .
‘Aspen Grove Pro mobile ad-hoc networking (MANET) protocol ‘ — ok, sounds interesting, tell me more! - self healing, self-defining, sounds like some kind of regression therapy some teenager goth went through, it also sounds hella cool. brooklyn man, keep on keeping on ;)
the price is pretty damn good to at $500 for 5 watts and just having that application compared to old radios is a boon for a digital user like me, i don’t wanna regress to ‘1-9 a roger’ cb style comms i want to you the method but i don’t want to use the older input so this is perfect - also this thing has 60+ hours of battery life from a single 3.5Wh battery, that’s pretty impressive and the fact they have an SDK as well means you can pretty much build out what you want — what if you could make a steemit locally enabled crypto value economy where the messages and interacting with them actually paid you to be an active member of that community?
tactical breadcrumbing
these guys are going hard but i can totally understand the excitement around this product and i love the example of using this on a drone to ensure communications for instance in maybe a forest fire or to relay messages in a network by having a unit fly a route back and forth providing a moving mesh, i’m not sure how well that would work but i guess it could pass the message between those closer to each other, kinda like a pass it along message at school with a piece of paper from the back to the front of the class — i’d be interested to if that worked ;)
https://www.gotenna.com/pages/gotenna-pro-technology
some of the specs of these beast are impressive. ..
MESH
Relay signals through other devices to expand network reach. (Units will function as relays even when not paired to smartphones.)
5 WATTS
RF transmissions with the power to perform in the toughest obstructed environments.
LONG BATTERY LIFE
60+ hours, or 1,200-12,000 messages, per charge, and fully rechargeable within 4-6 hours.
IP68 & MILSPEC
Fully submergible and ruggedized to take any operational abuse.
SMA CONNECTOR
Integrate with any off-the-shelf antennas or systems — including aircraft, fixed radio towers or vehicles.
TUNABLE
Operate on any frequencies in the 142-175 MHz (VHF) & 445-480 MHz (UHF) ranges.
MICRO-USB CHARGING
No custom charging docks or cables required.
INTRINSICALLY SAFE
Certified for use in explosive atmospheres without ignition risk.
check out the link above to see the other features but things like interactive mapping, personnel tracking, point mapping, perimeter/route marking, 384-bit ECC end-to-end PKI encryption (whoa, ok!) emergency beacons and that awesome open SDK really perk my ears up, i can’t be mad about that price either for this kind of spec - already looks like other people feel the same and you can find a number of applications that have been built to utilise the technology. .
- Android Team Awareness Kit (ATAK) — The leading situational awareness and C2 application for U.S. Special Forces. Developed and maintained by the Air Force Research Labs and SOCOM
- FiResponse - provides wildland fire tracking and management, and keeps in-field firefighters connected to each other as well as to base and helicopter operators.
- STING - Next-gen situational awareness, incident management and operational efficiency. Coordinate and manage teams in day to day operations and emergency responses.
in wrapping up
i’ve always had an interest in all things comms, since the day i found out i could have a free comms channel in my mini at 17 years of age with a cb radio on the roof to discovering IRC for the first time to first owning my first analog mobile phones i’ve always been interested in the transaction, the call or the connection, the location and the distance. now we have the smartphone and the fully fledged computer in our pocket it make sense for software and hardware to be married together in unison. the fact that this takes into account for existing systems we often take for granted is an extra special cherry on the top, i’d like to see something similar for maybe notifications and tracking for our loved ones as a bracelet too.
hoping to pick these up to do some real world testing in the coming year.
