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Bitchat – A decentralized messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks

(github.com)
770 points ananddtyagi | 4 comments | 07 Jul 25 00:05 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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Beretta_Vexee ◴[07 Jul 25 13:09 UTC] No.44490021[source]▶
As much as I like the idea of people working on peer-to-peer networks, delay tolerant network, if I'm within Bluetooth range, it's quicker to chat with the person I'm talking to than to go through a messaging app.

That technology is interesting, but it is probably not a good usecase. There are potentially lots of interesting things you could do with smart watches and bike computers, such as uploading activities without direct connection to a phone or sharing routes with nearby participants, etc.

Use cases where you may not necessarily have a phone or adequate network coverage.

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elric ◴[07 Jul 25 13:13 UTC] No.44490055[source]▶
We can communicate in more ways than just with words. Would be great to FINALLY have a sensible, low-friction, secure way to transfer files to people. It's 2025 and that's still not a solved problem.
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1. Beretta_Vexee ◴[07 Jul 25 13:21 UTC] No.44490123[source]▶
You probably don't need a decentralised, delay-tolerant network to send a photo to the person in front of you. It's even very likely that this will be much less efficient than a direct Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection or an AirDrop.

What would be the use case? Send the picture to someone at the other end of the lecture theatre? It's likely that there would be a phone network or Wi-Fi available. A crisis or emergency situation where networks are down? There isn't much population density or movement to propagate the data.

This debate is not new, many teams have worked on wireless ad hoc networks, some with very encouraging results. The real problem is what the use cases are.

That's why I personally think that the use case should be related to travel, transport, sport or vehicle-to-vehicle communication. Situations involving movement and loss of connectivity.

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2. elric ◴[07 Jul 25 13:46 UTC] No.44490339[source]▶
> Send the picture to someone at the other end of the lecture theatre? It's likely that there would be a phone network or Wi-Fi available.

Now you're back to using a centralised system using a network you know nothing about, operated by someone you don't know.

> direct Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection or an AirDrop

AirDrop is not cross platform AFAIK. Direct wifi or bluetooth aren't the easiest to work with for non-technical users.

> A crisis or emergency situation where networks are down? There isn't much population density or movement to propagate the data.

Why not? Do emergencies only occur when people are few and far between? I think I'm misunderstanding what you're saying.

> That's why I personally think that the use case should be related to travel, transport, sport or vehicle-to-vehicle communication. Situations involving movement and loss of connectivity.

That's certainly a valuable use case, but probably not something that bitchat would be useful for.

3. epynonymous ◴[08 Jul 25 05:01 UTC] No.44497229[source]▶
the use case is really decentralized communication. sure connecting to wifi is easy and accessible, 4g is pretty much unlimited, but what if you just want to share files/photos directly with a group of people without having to traverse the web/someone else's hw/sw? this is basically like a detached, private web. most of the time, you probably dont care if meta has your files, but for those that just dont like centralized services, this is great. think of it like an extremely private network, why not?
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4. Beretta_Vexee ◴[08 Jul 25 08:40 UTC] No.44498222[source]▶
I'm not against the idea, but it has already been tested with Firechat, Bridgefy, etc. during the protests in Hong Kong in 2019.

It doesn't work very well from a technical and practical point of view. Just having the app on your phone could be enough to get you charged in a totalitarian state.

So it's interesting, but it's not the use case that will democratise this type of ad-hoc network. For example, it is easier to implement end-to-end encryption on an existing infrastructure.

There must be a use case where there is no network connection, enough network participants, and that can accommodate a significant transmission delay.