Ken me up on meshing owlman!

My company operates in the events/tradeshow industry, where being online is not a given.

So I want to tell my CEO I can not only get more people online at shows, but also allow them to communicate internally even if the main Internet gateway goes down, and that will make show organisers worship us.

I know too little about all this, but I know you know more than nothing, so tell me please:

Is this viable with the non-rooted functionality in the average person's mobile and tablets?

What sort of stuff would I need to know about to build an app which provided this?

Feed me with words to make me smarter about all this!

You mean *gasp* talk to each other !?

 :-O

Why not just buy a decent access point? Or does that not do enough?

You'll all be networked. I imagine you'd need some sort of central server if you want some form of messaging to work.

Sounds like you want some kind of UDP broadcast capability, i.e. you send data on the broadcast address and listen for packets sent by other devices.

Sending messages on the broadcast address will only work if all devices are connected to the same network and have the same broadcast address.

Alternatively, a centralised server with a known IP address/hostname, internal to the network(s) that all the devices are able to connect to directly using TCP or UDP and is used to relay messages between clients.

You shouldn't need to be rooted/jail-broken to do this on Android and iOS, both should offer network broadcast capabilities natively, but you will probably need to get your hands dirty and write Java / Objective C.

I know this much about networking: ""
And this much about tablets: " "

*But*, I do know that the ability to do a mesh network has been in the kernel for many years and is pretty easy to set up on proper-Linux.

I don't think you can (without doing it all yourself, like) mesh mobile devices but you could connect them to the mesh. So you could mesh a bunch of strategically placed routers/laptops/RPis/whatever and then get everyone using a mobile device to connect to that mesh but then you wouldn't really be in any better position than just networking the regular way and having wifi extenders or whatever.

But yeah, would be *cool* if you could get the mobile devices meshing so that the net would extend really really far. No idea how you would even begin approaching that, sorry.

 

For messaging there's apps called jott or firechat
Using a mix of wifi and Bluetooth to mesh. havent looked in to the security though
Or you could use RFC1149/RFC2549...

Updated rfc

Thanks all. :)

I'm assuming if it was as easy as buying decent hardware it wouldn't be an issue, so presumably the number of people and/or size of venues make it either a logistical hassle or too expensive. I need to ask those questions and make sure I'm not misreading the actual problem, but also want to get an idea of feasibility first before I start asking questions.

The benefits of having devices connecting to a mesh (particularly if it's "download app and press button") is it means not having someone needing to spread large numbers of access points around thousands of square feet and multiple halls, all the while avoiding dead-spots and stuff.

If it needs Java then so be it. I'll wear gloves. :) Would definitely get someone else to handle an iOS port though.

FireChat uses Open Garden, which appears to be the sort of thing I'm looking for, but it's proprietary and their API is a link to an email address... :/

If the ease-of-use can get to plugging a [handful of] preconfigured RPis into wired networks and a simple app for all platforms, it could be pretty cool.

Sounds like there's a lot of research and coding to be done. What sustenance might you choose for such a task?

Er, tea and ginger nuts, probably. Why?

That's fine for a snack, but what if you needed something a little more substantial?

Two mugs of tea, a pack and a half of ginger nuts, the odd bourbon, strawberry milkshake, a malt loaf, and a mug of tea.

When the coding starts, add a mug of tea, a couple of chocolate biscuits, the rest of the ginger nuts, a bottle or two of cola, and a few chocolate-coated rice cakes.

So no Italian inspired, oven cooked open sandwiches?

Uh, what?! For research and coding? No way. No fucking way!

In what situations would you have a pizza?

Wow, you really are the other side of the curve.

I have no idea what that means. :-|