I see two use cases: * Communication between protestors * Illegal activities, but here I can imagine that bluetooth range is too small

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3RTB297 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The use cases stem from groups needing coordination in roughly the same area, with no internet. Disaster recovery efforts fit this exactly:

Doctors Without Borders feeding centers in a famine far from anywhere, searching for people in the rubble of a building following an earthquake, searching for people in a refugee camp, etc.

Verizon went down in the US this past week - perfect use case for Bitchat (or Meshtastic with a repeater or some other LoRa BT network). Verizon goes down while you're at the mall or store or Disneyland or whatever and you can still text to find each other.

300m max range with line of sight would cover something like when I go to visit my parents who live in a desert canyon with lousy mobile phone coverage, I can send a message that I'm at the gate and put the dogs in the garage.

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maqp 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Is this LoRa BT network thing something that actually exists? Is there a coverage map?

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c16 4 hours ago | parent [-]

There are yes for Meshtastic. This map seems to have the highest coverage of people sharing their nodes, but in reality in my area there are significantly more which are not shown on the map.

https://meshtastic.liamcottle.net/

	▲	maqp 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Whoa, at the same time it's negligible but also a LOT more than I expected. Thanks!

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thijson 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I remember reading that men and women in Saudi Arabia are forbidden from interacting directly in a bar setting. So instead they were using Bluetooth to covertly connect and communicate.

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catlifeonmars 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Communication between protestors > Illegal activities

Often one and the same since the first thing those in power try to do is make various activities by protestors illegal

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Almondsetat 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is simply an app that allows to communicate through bluetooth locally. Why are you saying its only two use cases are protesting and criminals?

	▲	melting_snow 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Im not saying that those are the only use cases, but I really see that there multiple other apps that make the "normal" communication much easier.

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reddalo 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I remember when Telegram had a "Nearby" feature. I remember seeing many not-so-legal activities around me, even in the range of 1 km.