Excuse me while I nerd out a little bit.
I’ve been getting into these cheap LoRa ‘nodes’ that you can buy and setup to communicate over radio frequencies. There’s no cellular plan. No internet required.
They are almost like ‘walkie-talkies’, but allow you to text instead of talk.
Another benefit is that you can communicate directly with other people and your messages are encrypted.
Here is what they look like:
The one I got here cost $17 dollars. I am seeing other nodes all the way over in Woodinville and Sammamish! The more ‘nodes’ that are around, the easier it is for all of us to talk because part of what they do is rebroadcast and boost the signal so messages can find their destination.
There is a small group of us in town that already have them. Some folks in this forum in fact! We’re thinking about putting together a little workshop for folks who may be interested in learning more about them. At the very least, they might come in handy during an emergency when internet and cell service goes down.
The device above works by connecting to your phone or laptop (basically as your keyboard/monitor) for it. There’s a free phone app that connects via bluetooth and allows you to send and receive messages.
I also just purchased a more expensive one to play around with that is fully mobile. It looks like an old Blackberry! I love it.
Just like walkie talkies, the person you are trying to reach has to have their node on in order to receive your message. However, there are some options for some LoRa based ‘bulletin board’ type things so you can check for messages you received while offline.
Wouldn’t it be cool if we had our own Bremerton mesh network?