Replies: 29 comments 58 replies
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That particular switch is intended for allowing the use of Bluetooth as a transport itself. But it will also be possible to connect to an RNode over Bluetooth, for exactly the purposes you mention. Implementing it over USB first was simply the most direct way to at least enable people to use RNodes in Android with relative ease :) But Bluetooth <-> RNode support is most definitely on the roadmap. I will move this to the discussion pages. |
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Hello all, I could help with the development of the Bluetooth connection. I have just modified the RNode firmware and defined a new interface type "RNodeBTInterface" in Reticlum. I still need to improve the code a bit etc. With a simple #define in the RNode firmware you can now use either serial or bluetooth. That was the minimum adjustment. I could of course change it so that both can be used at the same time or something. |
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If anyone is interested in my current work here are a few links. It is of course still in very early dev status. And not finished to make a pull request or somthing. https://github.com/SebastianObi/Reticulum |
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The problem with Android is fixed. I am really close to finish everything as first beta test for this bluetooth connection :) |
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Hi Everyone While I understand the eagerness to get this up and running, I would appreciate it if everyone can take a step back and look at the overall picture here, before more time and effort is spent in this direction. Before starting work on such an integral feature as this, it would have been a great idea to discuss this with the maintainer of all of the software, yours truly ;) In that case we could have coordinated the efforts much better, and you would have had an idea of the expectations to the implementation beforehand. While I have no doubts that the implementation of Bluetooth connectivity you have put together actually works, it is also a quick hack, and not a well-considered solution to the overall problem of Bluetooth/wireless connectivity. I really, really don't say this to degrade your efforts or work, and hope you wont take it as such. But doing things fast instead of right always leads to misery down the line in software and hardware projects. I have spent a lot of time carefully planning and considering how to properly implement wireless (both Bluetooth and WiFi) connectivity between RNodes and hosts, and while I know it is with the best intentions, your implementation ploughs right through that to simply implement the something that "just works right now", as easily and quickly as possible. In its current form, I will not be able to accept pull requests for this into neither Reticulum, nor the RNode firmware or related config tools, for the following reasons:
As a quick hack to test out Bluetooth functionality, it is totally great and probably enough to try it out, and "see it working", but at this point, we just can't put this into RNS and Sideband. As it stands now, it has a long way to go. Implementing this funcionality has been on the roadmap for a long time, and I can definitely understand the excitement to get it working. While I am also really eager for this functionality myself, we need to do it right the first time. |
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This customization is of course to be understood as an experimental test version. This is also created very spontaneously to see that it is theoretically possible to realize bluetooth connectivity. The code is still far from being ready and functional. I wanted to give a hint how this could possibly be implemented. In some places I just applied some hacks to make it work. It still needs to be properly thought out and executed. I also can not say whether this works reasonably. A little test with a few messages had at least apparently worked without noticeable problems. How that behaves now in detail in different scenarios, of course, no one can say. Even with a larger amount of data or how error-free the connection is in general. The firmware is also very provisionally adapted. It should not be a version with only bluetooth, but universally compatible. To bring this into a status which is no longer considered as experiemntel and can also be published is still a lot of work necessary. That is also clear to me. It should not be taken over by you now. |
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I agree with your comments. Since this was very spontaneous I have not thought about how to implement. It should be enough for a simple demonstration. The handling of the firmware, paring and configuration is not practical for live operation. |
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I see that I read over everything a little too quickly, and was not aware that there was two different forks/brances, so I missed parts of the code, and it looked very strange to me ;)
Yes, again I realise that I probably misunderstood the intention here since I looked at it too superficially. I had understood it as if you felt this was near ready for general release and incorporation into RNode, Reticulum and Sideband master branches. I see now that this should more be viewed as an experimental proof-of-concept implementation, that demontstrates that this functionality is feasible and can work well in the real world. Is that correct? |
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With the forks it has become very confusing. Everyone has been tinkering with it a bit :) This code was created within one day. Accordingly, only very rudimentary and temporarily brought to function. The goal is to bring your development further forward and to expand the range of functions. Therefore it is quite ok for a code to inspire the feasibility and help starting with the bluetooth functionality. I learned later that under linux you can use rfcomm directly with the existing serial interface in reticulum. I will delete this unneccessary interface. Only an adaptation of reticulum for android is necessary. The idea to define an additional interface type here was: it is easier to make specific adjustments for the bluetooth handling without having a negative impact on the already working interface. In addition, 2 RNodes could then be connected in parallel (USB + Bluetooth). Perhaps this could be developed further in a test branch. Then the user could decide if he wants to use the stable version or the test version. |
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Right, in the context of the last comment, I get the whole situation now. This is a quick hack to poorly sprint something to an MVP that you can fork, rebrand and present to investors, so you can lazily profit off my work. Thanks man. What a great fucking help that has been. |
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I hope you don't mean me too. I made this for myself, because I don't have enough USB cables so I could still use more then 1 or 2 rnode's at the same time |
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No, I actually have no idea who was involved in this and in what ways. I just know that if the intention of doing this was to take Sideband to show off to money-people without discussing it with me first, it absolutely crosses the line for me, and is in no way OK. So thank you for letting me know that. |
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I think I know what you mean and how you feel. It's your baby.... |
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The plan is definitely to integrate the bluetooth and serial connection into one firmware and then switch between serial and bluetooth by setting via rnoceconf/sideband. Also the pairing mechanism could be done via rnodeconf and stored in the eeprom. Not every board has a display or button. Of course, I have many more ideas. |
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In general, we would like to establish the software in Germany as an emergency communication network. In the near future we want to look for investors who could support the development financially. Thereby we would like to have a few more small functions of the software to show them. (This does not have to be implemented optimally). If support is then found, the development can also go faster and better. The biggest challenge is first of all to have a product that generates interest when it is presented. The following 3 functions would be the most important for us: Bluetooth connection, group message/roadcast and the migration of the page browser function from Nomadnet to Sideband. |
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I am including your original, unedited comment here for reference (emphasis mine):
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Also, in the service of brevity, I tried restraining myself here, and not directly answer all the ridiculous things I see here. While my initial comments (posted before, and found below this one) still stands as my primary points, I just can't let this one sit, because it is so outrageously weird:
What in the blazing fucktarts makes you think that you are the one making the calls on what levels of completeness or "implementation optimality" my software needs to be in, before it is presented to your investors? What did you smoke man? My work ethic and values dictate that anything I release is thouroughly considered, well implemented, properly tested, and thus has a high level of quality and viability in the real world. If there is something I will absolutely not stand for, it is someone else associating Reticulum, and thereby also my work as a whole, with sloppy piece-of-shit hacks just to impress people with money. |
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I want to mention, that I'm not part of "we". I work with them together, but I don't think like them. |
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Thanks for bringing that up, it is noted. |
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@SebastianObi
Aaah, what? Let me get this straight. You are going to take someone elses software and hardware ecosystem, that you have made practically zero contributions to, and present that to "investors" as if it was your own innovation, so that you can raise money for your own purposes? You are telling me that you literally need certain features implemented in Sideband and Reticulum as quickly as possible, so you can use it as investor-bait to profit off of my work? And you guys did not consider having a discussion with me about this first? No wonder you and the other FDG guys have been so incredibly pushy about getting all these features implemented. It was about the money all along, wasn't it? What was the plan here, just rake in some money and move on? Fucking pathetic. I'd have you know that I spent eight years designing, builiding and implementing this entire ecosystem out of my own time and pocket. To protect the universality, accountability and neutrality of Reticulum as a human-oriented technology, for all that time I have refused to seek or accept venture capital, politically based funding or any other external resources that might have biased the project in any certain direction. Before I just say that I am fucking apalled by your conduit and move on, I am going to let you answer for this yourself. |
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And this addendum specifically adresses your edit to the original comment above. You added the following:
Which to me looks like you are trying to excuse something that you actually do see is really shady behaviour. What in the world made you think that I am not cabable of seeking funding for Reticulum myself when the time is right, or that you guys should somehow have to take a cut of that, or arbit it, first? If you just wanted to help, why did you not come forward with a straightforward proposal on a collaboration on funding? That is so strange to me. You know what makes development go faster and better? Supporting the actual developers directly and being outright, honest and clear in requests and collaboration. This whole Bluetooth saga was not a well-intended and enthusiastic assistance to the project as a whole, but a quick hack to get something ready you could show off to "investors". It was simply to serve your own financial interest. Wow. That really sucks. |
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And just so that we are absolutely clear here: In absolutely no way, shape or form do I condone or stand behind you including demonstrations of Sideband, Reticulum, Nomad Network or any related technology in any form of presentation to investors, funds or similar, whether in person, in written form, or even enacted as a pantomime. If you have already carried out applications for funds that in any way included the names of anything Related to the Reticulum project, I need to know this, and would absolutely appreciate that you come forward with it now. |
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You still did not address this @SebastianObi. Did you guys already apply for funds and/or investments in connection with Reticulum? |
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Sorry Mark for the inconvenience and off-topic comment. I just wanted to mention in general that we would like to use your software. Where the copyright etc will all be respected. It is not the intention to copy/steal your work in any form and pass it off as our work or anything. We really appreciate your many years of work. It will also always be clear that you are he author. Also nothing shall be commercialized, sold or distributed in any other way. Everything will remain OpenSource according to your licenses and always free of charge. It is not about making money in any way. Since your software is rather unknown at the moment we would like to make this known. This includes finding interested developers or other people who are willing to support. And this also by donating money etc. for you and other developers. You write everywhere that people can support you with donations. We would like to do this. Unfortunately, we simply do not have the financial resources to do so. That's why it would make sense to look for interested people who would like to support your software and our network with it. We would like to bring it as fast as possible from a pure test phase, into an alternative to the free communication used by active users, in order to promote interest and support for all working on it. I can't answer further details now, because I'm only technically interested in this topic. I am the wrong person for that. |
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Sorry, this is an unfounded assumption on your part. What makes you think that the project does not have exactly the amount of exposure that I planned for it to have at this point in time? I have on several occasions worked pretty persistently to avoid Reticulum getting more exposure. Too much exposure too early destroys projects by draining time and resources away to completely pointless energy sinks. You seem to be making a lot of assumptions that you don't have much basis for, and then using those as arguments to prop up your view.
You are so very welcome, and I deeply appreciate all the donations made to the project. I have not seen any from FDG yet.
Of course it will, that is part of the license terms. Why even mention it?
I am having a hard time imagining how anything can get much further from "respect", than shamelessly taking someone elses software, verbatim, and using it to present yourself to investors. It's so cringeworthy I can't believe anyone can seriously hold that proposition in their head for very long without their toes falling off. |
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Like, who duped you into thinking that was somehow OK? |
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Seriously thought, Niels got you onto all of this, right? Just so you know, you're like the third or fourth person I have to go through all of this with. I don't know if I should cry or laugh man, it is honestly completely stupid. You all act like I don't have any clue about what I am doing, or that this is some kind of friggin' hobby project, and that you are somehow here to save the day from my lack of promotion, planning ability, or whatnot, if only I juuuuust hurry up and give you those things you really, really need to get that investor money. Like I said @SebastianObi, this is not the first time this whole rigamarole plays out. It's getting so tiresome by now, and I am resorting to letting this discussion be public this time, even though it is sort of petty. But at least then it can be referred back to in the future, when this inevitably happens again. |
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This is complete bullshit, by the way. Just before you were talking about seeking investor money, and how your "product" (in reality the Reticulum project, note the difference) needed to "generate interest" when presented (to your investors), and now you are just "technically interested" in the project and have nothing to do with all of that, or what? So why have you been pushing all these little presentation-critical changes to get implemented for the last couple of weeks, and now rushing to get the bluetooth stuff implemented? When doing that you were obviously quite "invested" in a lot more than just "technical interest". So what is this really? Are you acting here as yourself, or on behalf of "FDG" and its interests?
You have not thought this through man. Packaging up my software and hardware platform and taking it to investors and other funding sources, to raise money for the FDG organisation, completely behind my back, is stealing my work. If you are not willing to answer to that, I am not going to try and force you. But we can't really continue to have any conversation if you just don't want to take a position on that. If you don't want to answer for the FDG organisation, fine, just answer for yourself. Do you seriously think this is ok and fair? I'd really like to hear what you think about that, personally. |
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@SebastianObi can you please stop to say "we"? |
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And also, @SebastianObi, I don't hold any of this against you personally as such. I can hear that much of what you are saying regarding what the software "needs" probably comes from the "leader" of the FDG organisation, and from him pushing his members to get his needs implemented. I have heard it several times before, from other people that were recruited to the FDG to carry out the same task as you are now. It must be very important for Niels to get that investor money soon, huh? If the FDG really stands by the values he claims, I wonder why he has not focused more on helping the Reticulum project directly, instead of just having a bunch of different people trying to make me implement the features he needs in a hurry. Hmm, probably because the goal is not "the common good", but really to control the immense financial value and power-base that such a network would represent for himself. I have no idea what you were told, or what you believe in @SebastianObi, but this might be a really good time to just sit down and consider if you are doing something that helps the greater good, or if you are just being used for somebody elses financial purposes. To anyone who made it this far in this thread, and in the interest of transparency, here is some additional context: @SebastianObi is part of an organisation called "FDG" that, among other things, seeks to build a radio network in the Germany, Austria and Switzerland (DACH) region of Europe. This project is, as far as I can gather, a completely commercial endeavour, even though it is in some respects being branded and communicated as being purely non-profit and "for the common good". Several people from within the FDG has repeatedly tried to coax me into implementing (as fast as possible, and without thought for the overall viability or purpose of Reticulum) the exact features they would need to have (in their own words) a "Minimally Viable Product" for their vision. The arguments for why I should do this has ranged from "we will make you famous" to "we might give you a bit of money if it succeeds" to "you have to do it now because it is really important for the safety of a lot of people". They also tried to convince me that I should add features that would allow network operators wider control and censorship options of traffic passing through their networks. This came directly from one of the founders of the organisation. Needless to say, such requests were never even considered, as anything other than inane rambling. Seen purely from the perspective of being the maintainer of Reticulum, I will remain completely neutral on whether networks are built as a commons or as private or commercial property. What I am not neutral on however, is acting like you are building a commons-based project, recruiting people to work for you for free, and then even going as far as seeking investor funding, completely on the basis of someone elses innovation and body of work. Doing so would have a very high probability of actively harming the Reticulum project as a whole, and I would obviously work directly and actively against any effort to that effect. I have edited this comment a few times to clarify things, add a few perspectives and fix some typos. The complete edit history is available on the comment. |
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And to deter future shit like this, I am considering implementing a new great concept in Sideband, that I call DeCorpoAI. It uses high-frequency measurements from the device accelerometer and ambient light sensors, fed into a machine-learning model, to detect the presence of nearby venture capital, and automatically puts the application into "MaxBug" mode, ensuring complete unreliability, while at the same time applying a butt-ugly interface theme running at 2.5 fps. |
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This should be implemented via an ICO for a shitcoin IMHO. An unnecessary dependency on an incredibly slow database would complete it. |
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Of course! Why did I not think of this myself. I'm adding this to the specsheet as I type! |
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And Niels, you're probably going to read this at some point, so maybe it is time that get out of the bush and answer to some of this, openly and publicly in this discussion, caus in many ways I have a hard time believing @SebastianObi has much to do with the actual critique points and bad conduct here, but was rather just doing what he believed to be good, without thinking too deeply into it. |
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And @SebastianObi, I realise that most of my reaction here (in the below comments) might be a case of "shooting the messenger", and directing my frustration towards you, where it may not have been warranted. If that really is the case, I am sorry. I hope you can also also appreciate how incredibly inappropriate and absurd a thing it is that you told me this:
To be honest that made me very angry. You brought that message to me, and in your subsequent answers you seemed to stand behind it pretty clearly, so I directed my rebuttal towards you directly, and with quite a lot of energy. |
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Back to the Bluetooth topic: |
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Btw, would it be much work to do a standalone reticulum android version without sideband? I work more with nomadnet inside termux and only need a extra app for seriell USB and then Bluetooth connection. Everything else works over network and therefore can be used freely. |
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Yes, this is definitely on the plan, and something I am counting on doing when the last few important features are deployed in Sideband. I need this myself too :) But the GUI app was more important for a lot of people. |
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Btw, did you used snippets of my code now? I would be very interested to see what you made out of it. Sorry but I'm very curious, because I think it's very cool when someone further developed your code. I think my last sentence sound's a little broken. English isn't my mother language, I am from Germany... |
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No worries about that, we understand each other fine :) Yes, I totally understand, I know the feeling! But no, I'm sorry, I didn't use any of it. I mostly used the code I already had from the v2 branch, but had to restructure it a lot to fit in with the Arduino-compatible environment instead of Zephyr. The display driver is pretty neat though, it supports two separate windows, running in portrait and landscape mode, on-the-fly rotation (but not actually used yet), external framebuffer control, partial or full updates to the externally controlled framebuffer, dynamic and configurable framerate targetting, symbol- and icon-map rendering, and a few more bits and pieces that will come in handy later. |
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Nice |
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Hello @markqvist, I would like to apologize for my quick and careless way of talking to you. Also, the incorrect use of "we". I have also chosen some wrong or misleading words like "investors". Several months ago I was looking for a mesh communication tool. Thereby I became attentive on the project "free German emergency radio network" of "FDG". Since I had found nothing else like it in Germany I decided to join or support this project. I can understand that there is some pressure on you to implement certain features quickly. In the end, of course, everything would have to be well planned in order to implement high quality in your software. Or would have to be adapted accordingly to the individual needs as a fork. So that this is not in conflict with your planning. Why this is done is certainly the following understandable aspect: If you consider that especially in Germany at the moment a crisis time (blackout or similar) is becoming more and more realistic. It would of course be optimal to have a communication network. The discussion should not be continued here. Instead, we should return to the original technical topic. |
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Thanks for being open and taking the effort to share this with me. I really appreciate that. I understand your perspective a lot better now, and I can see that I also reacted more strongly than what was necessary, if I had known the whole situation better. At least, now you know without a doubt where I stand on certain things ;) I very much understand the situation in Germany, and many other places, and why the possibilites that Reticulum and related brings are very valuable to help in alleviating some of the hardship this will bring. It is exactly these kinds of problems and issues that motivated me to spend the better part of my productive life working towards solutions like Reticulum. I'm saying this so you know that I am in no way blind to this, quite the contrary. But at this point in time, I also now best what the most efficient path there is, within the context of Reticulum. There is so much planning and thougth behind the scenes that you, or anyone else don't see. From the outside, it can very easily look as if "not enough is happening", especially when you feel there is a need, right now and here. None of my actions or choices with regards to Reticulum are unconsidered, I can assure you of that with all my heart. When I rarely publish or talk about these considerations, it is simply because it takes time that I could have used to actually build the thing, and that I don't think there is much of an audience for that, so far. And so, it stays in my notebooks ;) While I completely support anyone, including FDG, to build exactly the kinds of networks they need and want, I have had some concerns that some people within that organisation want more to use the network as a tool for control and power, than for the benefit of people. Whether that concern is warranted remains to be seen. Either way, it will be extremely hard for someone to co-opt a Reticulum network for those purposes, as long as the protocol is not compromised by adding functions that can be abused. And I agree, let us return to the actual topics at hand. Again, thank you for being straightforward and open to me. |
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Also, this thread has, very much by my own devices, turned into a complete mess, so let's try to keep it on the subject of bluetooth functionality from now. Please open new threads for all the other interesting topics :) In that regard, it may be worth opening one regarding the standalone Reticulum daemon for Android, @LaneaLucy, if you feel like more discussion is valuable. |
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I don't think there is a need for discussion. Only a standalone version to interfacing with technologys, that are not accessible inside termux or similar |
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Just as a heads up to anyone who didn't see it yet, the RNode Firmware now has full Bluetooth and display support. All supported devices with built-in displays work out of the box, as soon as they have been flashed. You need to update to at least For T-Beam devices, you can connect an external SSD1306 OLED display to the GND, 3V3, SCL and SDA pins, and optionally digital Pin 0 as the reset line, if your display needs a physical reset line. The T-Beam version of the firmware expects the display to use I2C address |
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It works now. I think I misunderstood the instructions or the behavior has changed. When I press the Bluetooth enable button the permission request for the USB Serial comes up. After that it works with USB and Bluetooth. It would be better if the permission check is done at the start of Sideband like in the old version when the RNode is enabled via USB. It is a bit confusing that you have to press the Bluetooth button although you want to use USB. |
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Ah, you need to plug in the RNode over usb before launching Sideband, and when Android asks which app to use, select Sideband. For most Android versions it seems that the USB permissions are assigned on a per-connection (not per-device) basis, for one app at a time only. Unless you choose the "always open with..." option. If Sideband starts up and cant find any RNodes connected over USB (either because there is none connected, or there is no permissions, it looks the same), it is just going to skip USB RNode startup so it wont hang forever there. If you have had a USB RNode connected while Sideband was starting, you can unplug and replug it and the interface will be brought up and down (assuming the serial chip/driver supports detecting the hotplug events). |
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Ah ok, then it was my misunderstanding. And maybe some unhappy circumstances. Btw: I tried the Bluetooth feature on Android 10. Unfortunately it doesn't work. I googled a little bit and maybe there are changes in the permissions and Bluetooth handling since Andoid 12. |
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With the newest release it should work correctly under Android 10 as well. Actually I don't have an Android 10 device to test with, but there were differences in how the bluetooth permission was handled starting in Android 12. I tested it in 13, 12, 11, 9 and 8, so I'm pretty sure it works in 10 as well ;) |
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Also, I implemented the ability to control RNode bluetooth state without having to have it plugged in when the program launches. Just remember to actually grant the permission when you plug it in :) |
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What's the status/thinking on BLE? I mentioned it in one of the iPhone threads, but don't see any more details on it @markqvist . Is there anything posted? Thanks! |
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Was testing the platform and also felt strange that bluetooth support between phones and laptops in the local vicinity wasn't an option yet. Connecting to the same local network is OK enough for trying out, but this only works at home or when everyone gets into the same local network. When meeting on the street for a spontaneous event or gathering, bluetooth would be an ideal choice. For example, to know which other people are in the vicinity available for connecting. This usage was well solved to some point with Briar: https://briarproject.org/how-it-works/ but development has winded down, and it isn't as flexible as Reticulum for connecting to just about any data path. So it would be nice to see that type of default connectivity also available here, if possible. |
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Don't know about local BLE connectivity to other clients... I think for phone type devices this is in the 30ft/10m range only? The RNode gives quite a wider range, but it does require the extra hardware. |
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Just for practical purposes. To connect on Wi-Fi you need to have everyone connected to the same hotspot or router. With bluetooth you only need to be around and keep your phone connected to another Wi-Fi as usual. This is useful to keep exchanging messages. |
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I've been looking into BLE Coded PHY for a while now, which has decent medium-range performance at 100-300 meters, but nothing concrete to show for it yet. It's a maze designing a solution that will work across platforms, chipsets and Bluetooth versions. |
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I'm currently working on a draft version of an interface for Sideband Android that uses GATT with BLE 4.2 Long Writes over 1M PHY to transport packets between nodes, but BLE Coded PHY is super cool, too. It's just unfortunate that you need BT 5 for it, as so many devices with BT 4.2+ are currently sitting unused and would function as perfect nodes on the network. |
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I've been using BLE 4.2+ to send unencrypted messages at an Android app that can connect with each other without need for manual interaction on either side. Likely due to my lack of experience with Android and bluetooth in general but I've been unable to make a stable connection work. The BLE stack on Android stops handling messages after a while. The code is available here in case of interest: https://github.com/radio3-network/geogram For our off-grid purpose, using bluetooth of Wi-Fi from normal Android phones without internet is already a most-wanted feature. People just download the app and can start chatting with each other or exchanging data (photos, messages, etc). |
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Have you also tried Wi-Fi direct? I think it would be cool for this purpose. Since Android's Wi-Fi direct Group owner only makes IPv4 addresses, I'm working on adding a WSD daemon to the TCP server so that it can discover devices that way. |
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I've experimented with Wi-Fi direct for about a month. Wi-Fi direct to Wi-Fi direct was pretty awful. About 50% chance being able to detect the other device. At some point I've learned that Wi-Fi direct can create a sort for Wi-Fi hotspot albeit you can't choose the SSID nor password. I've encoded these values on the BLE characteristic data and that (theoretically) permitted other devices to authenticate into the Wi-Fi hotspot and then access a service running on the host. The good thing is that one could connect to this Wi-Fi hotspot without the host having to disconnect itself from the Wi-Fi connection it has with the usual Wi-Fi router. Wrong. It turns out that connecting from Android to another network requires explicit permission from the user. I've solved that with a permission dialog, then it still refused because Android to Android cannot exchange information in plain HTTP, needs to be HTTP but I can't use an SSL certificate because this is supposed to connect without internet. I've kind of solved it with custom certificates and a few other awful solutions but still it wouldn't connect afterwards albeit I could access it from other devices like normal laptops. Then I've reached yet another problem, the Wi-Fi direct connections kept being created and stored permanently on the phone memory and were not possible to delete even after reboots. There is a limit to how many can be generated and not so trivial to reuse an existing connection so at some point the phone refused to create more. So Wi-Fi direct pretty much became a dead-end. My approach for the future is likely to just have the user to setup the hotspot credentials inside the app, so these can be shared by BLE and then manually enable the Wi-Fi hotspot when wanting to share large files. It isn't ideal, but I'm running out of better options. |
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Why use HTTP, even with self-signed certificates? Wi-Fi direct networks have multicasting that works well, it's the intended way to move data across a Wi-Fi direct network since UDP is guaranteed to deliver because of Wi-Fi's PHY implementation of sending the data. |
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Yeah, BLE is so bad on Android. I do have experience with it in a mesh
though: https://github.com/regulad/BlueHeaven
Using encrypted bonds for BLE on Android is also a nightmare. My
implementation is using unencrypted packets as well. Considering the
built-in security of reticulum, I think it’s fine.
…On Sun, Feb 16, 2025 at 1:20 PM brito ***@***.***> wrote:
I've been using BLE 4.2+ to send unencrypted messages at an Android app
that can connect with each other without need for manual interaction on
either side. Likely due to my lack of experience with Android and bluetooth
in general but I've been unable to make a stable connection work. The BLE
stack on Android stops handling messages after a while.
The code is available here in case of interest:
https://github.com/radio3-network/geogram
For our off-grid purpose, using bluetooth of Wi-Fi from normal Android
phones without internet is already a most-wanted feature.
People just download the app and can start chatting with each other or
exchanging data (photos, messages, etc).
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Good work and good explanation of your difficulties. Even with the wonderful explanation from the BLESSED library there is still more that is missing. For example, he doesn't cover the caching of data on the GATT server. I've already followed his indications but still it stops working at some point, claiming it can't find the service UUID albeit it would have been doing that just fine for 1 hour before. All of these connections are unbounded. I'm not even dreaming about encryption at this point, just getting it to work reliably would already be quite a conquest. Chatgpt has been helpful in a few ideas on where to try other things. I'm not there yet, if I ever managed to get this more stable I'll write here. |
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Interesting, my impl mainly just used devices that were fixed as group
owners, I wasn't aware of the issues that come up when hot-swapping. Seems
similar to the issues like native handle depletion with BLE, It would just
seem Android isn't a good platform for p2p like this in the first place. I
do think having manually created Wi-Fi hotspots is a good middle ground,
though. With the WSD daemon working it should be as simple as just joining
a network with a peer and letting discovery handle the rest.
…On Sun, Feb 16, 2025 at 3:33 PM brito ***@***.***> wrote:
I've experimented with Wi-Fi direct for about a month.
Wi-Fi direct to Wi-Fi direct was pretty awful. About 50% chance being able
to detect the other device. At some point I've learned that Wi-Fi direct
can create a sort for Wi-Fi hotspot albeit you can't choose the SSID nor
password. I've encoded these values on the BLE characteristic data and that
(theoretically) permitted other devices to authenticate into the Wi-Fi
hotspot and then access a service running on the host.
The good thing is that one could connect to this Wi-Fi hotspot without the
host having to disconnect itself from the Wi-Fi connection it has with the
usual Wi-Fi router.
Wrong.
It turns out that connecting from Android to another network requires
explicit permission from the user. I've solved that with a permission
dialog, then it still refused because Android to Android cannot exchange
information in plain HTTP, needs to be HTTP but I can't use an SSL
certificate because this is supposed to connect without internet. I've kind
of solved it with custom certificates and a few other awful solutions but
still it wouldn't connect afterwards albeit I could access it from other
devices like normal laptops.
Then I've reached yet another problem, the Wi-Fi direct connections kept
being created and stored permanently on the phone memory and were not
possible to delete even after reboots. There is a limit to how many can be
generated and not so trivial to reuse an existing connection so at some
point the phone refused to create more.
So Wi-Fi direct pretty much became a dead-end. My approach for the future
is likely to just have the user to setup the hotspot credentials inside the
app, so these can be shared by BLE and then manually enable the Wi-Fi
hotspot when wanting to share large files. It isn't ideal, but I'm running
out of better options.
—
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Try it yourself, I'm crossing fingers you can go further. Maybe possible to ask for the code to be written in Java? Makes it easier for me to contribute/reuse and in the end makes it easier to port libraries into java apps on normal computers. |
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I can write as much Java as I want. Pyler has support for arbitrary Java code bundled into the app with the |
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What’s the blessed library?
…On Sun, Feb 16, 2025 at 3:39 PM brito ***@***.***> wrote:
Good work and good explanation of your difficulties. Even with the
wonderful explanation from the BLESSED library there is still more that is
missing. For example, he doesn't cover the caching of data on the GATT
server. I've already followed his indications but still it stops working at
some point, claiming it can't find the service UUID albeit it would have
been doing that just fine for 1 hour before.
All of these connections are unbounded. I'm not even dreaming about
encryption at this point, just getting it to work reliably would already be
quite a conquest. Chatgpt has been helpful in a few ideas on where to try
other things. I'm not there yet, if I ever managed to get this more stable
I'll write here.
—
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The author of that document that you refer on your project page is also the author for one of the best Android BLE libraries that exists, which is called BLESSED: https://github.com/weliem/blessed-kotlin I'm supposing he placed all his knowledge on that code. I didn't really used it because on this use-case scenario is needed to create BLE beacons. |
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Oh, I didn’t know he made a library! I implemented a lot of his teaching
myself in this library I wrote:
https://github.com/regulad/regulib/tree/master/ble
I still have to do the GATT serving myself, but I’ll see if I can use that
library in the code for Sideband.
…On Sun, Feb 16, 2025 at 5:05 PM brito ***@***.***> wrote:
The author of that document that you refer on your project page is also
the author for one of the best Android BLE libraries that exists, which is
called BLESSED: https://github.com/weliem/blessed-kotlin
I'm supposing he placed all his knowledge on that code. I didn't really
used it because on this use-case scenario is needed to create BLE beacons.
—
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In one way or another, though, it looks like I’m going to need to add the
kotlin stdlib to the build of sideband to use these libraries, which is a
shame. I’ll see if I can stick to pure java, since Pyler doesn’t really
enable inserting dependencies straight into the gradle build definition and
instead requires manual library management.
On Sun, Feb 16, 2025 at 5:17 PM Parker Wahle <
***@***.***> wrote:
… Oh, I didn’t know he made a library! I implemented a lot of his teaching
myself in this library I wrote:
https://github.com/regulad/regulib/tree/master/ble
I still have to do the GATT serving myself, but I’ll see if I can use that
library in the code for Sideband.
On Sun, Feb 16, 2025 at 5:05 PM brito ***@***.***> wrote:
> The author of that document that you refer on your project page is also
> the author for one of the best Android BLE libraries that exists, which is
> called BLESSED: https://github.com/weliem/blessed-kotlin
>
> I'm supposing he placed all his knowledge on that code. I didn't really
> used it because on this use-case scenario is needed to create BLE beacons.
>
> —
> Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub
> <#127 (comment)>,
> or unsubscribe
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I spotted a placeholder setting in Sideband for bluetooth. Is the intention for this to
Connect with Rnode devices over Bluetooth?
Or to use Bluetooth as a networking layer in itself?
The first seems like the more interesting option to me. I like to keep my Android device in my pocket, keeping a reliable USB connection is not really practical.
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