How To Send A Message Without Service

Reader 50. emailed me this week about an app that can prove helpful when in remote locations, during emergencies, and at very crowded places similar the Women's March and other protests. I've been playing with it this weekend and think information technology's a valuable tool and it's called FireChat.

With FireChat, y'all can transport text letters without whatever cell service and uses no mobile data. Your text can even go through when you're in airplane mode. At a music festival and can't get any bars? Drove to go get provisions and wish y'all could ostend a buy with someone you left back at the military camp? Maybe you're at the Women's March this weekend and got separated from your group and there's not plenty service to get a text through to your friends? With FireChat, a completely gratis app (no ads or trial periods) your message could become through in all of these situations.

FireChat is an individual and group texting app that works on your phone however doesn't need phone data to role. You just need your wifi (fifty-fifty if it says there's no wifi, keep it on) and Bluetooth turned on, and information technology uses that to create a mesh network, non a cellular network.

From L.: "Side note, mesh networks are the coolest and I have a feeling more of these types of things will exist popping upward. For now, FireChat is the all-time 1 I've found."

In groups of thousands of people, prison cell phone towers get overloaded. As a result, calls will drop and texts won't go through. Even with the amped up service down at The Mall this weekend (source), in that location's a very skillful chance your telephone won't be useful for much other than taking photos.

FireChat doesn't need prison cell service. It has been used successfully in disasters and protests effectually the world and is a favorite form of advice at Burning Homo (source). With FireChat y'all can transport encrypted individual texts to friends or groups simply like the text characteristic built into your phone, and set it to provide notifications like to standard texts. Yous can as well create open up public chatrooms which are great for large events to share news and of-the-minute data. Laura compared these chatrooms to how a hashtag works on Twitter – it'southward open to the world but a great way to aggregate information in real fourth dimension.

When you lot download FireChat you create an business relationship. You volition need to provide a legitimate email address – not only will this help friends find you, but you lot will receive a Pivot number by email to complete your account. You are asked to provide a existent name but y'all tin can create a pseudonym if you wish to maintain privacy. Create a username of at least half dozen characters and you're gear up to chat.

The app is a bit buggy at time when yous're trying to make your business relationship or observe contacts. I installed it on my phone and connected information technology to Facebook and at present I can't see any contacts on my Contacts tab except myself. I installed information technology on Karl's phone and didn't accept his connect to Facebook and his Contacts tab has the individual from his telephone'southward Contacts that are also on FireChat. Searching for people is as well super buggy; I put in a friend'due south commencement proper name which is relatively common and it came up with 0 results.

Nonetheless, I plant it like shooting fish in a barrel to connect with friends by starting a group chat and sending each of my friends a link, or by sharing my account from within the app to friends via traditional text or electronic mail. You tin also share via Facebook or Twitter. Once we made any sort of connection it was piece of cake to find them in the app, "follow" them and first private individual or group texts.

Private texts are encrypted. Chatrooms are as wide open up to the public as Twitter is. Y'all cannot delete a chatroom, you lot cannot delete any communication yous brand in a chatroom. If you utilise a chatroom, be savvy. Don't accept a screenname of your real proper noun. Don't give too many identifying details. Use the Internet mindset – for every ane person y'all think is reading, there's actually a grand more than out there and at least one-half of them aren't reading with the best intentions.

I've made a chatroom on FireChat called #WO2MarchOfficial, you and your friends can detect and follow this. Feel free to use it as a sandbox to play with FireChat and get your sea legs. On the twenty-four hour period of the March you can utilise it to share any important data relating to the event. I do not plan to monitor the chatroom the 24-hour interval of the March, but will check in this week to respond questions every bit I am able. The success of FireChat is in the number of users; the more of united states with it at the March, the faster communication will get through the masses, the more than likely friends will stay connected and of import news is spread apace through the crowds.

Each phone that has FireChat is like a jail cell belfry. If just yous and your friend are the only people at the March, or a music festival, or a remote location with FireChat, it won't really work past 200 feet. But if others take it, fifty-fifty if they're not using information technology they can be a booster to help ship your message further without having access to the bulletin. It'southward like each phone is a postman who is unable to read the letter of the alphabet only will evangelize it to the recipient. FireChat was the source of advice during Occupy Central in Hong Kong; over 500,000 individuals downloaded the app to connect during the protests (source). That keen number is what made information technology a successful texting tool.

If at that place aren't a lot of people with FireChat, your text may be delayed until there is less space between you and the recipient, or more people with FireChat between you 2. So fifty-fifty if yous don't use FireChat the day of the March, just by having it on your phone yous're helping others connect.

If you lot'd similar to try FireChat, I recommend y'all download information technology well in accelerate of the March so you tin get accustomed to it, connect with your friends or group for the trip, and even brainstorm some individual and/or grouping texts with them so information technology'due south easy to selection up that chat Saturday when necessary. Do a few texts, chat in a chatroom (experience free to use mine just please exist sure to be aware it, like all chatrooms on FireChat, is broad open to all), make sure y'all have notification settings that work best for you. Have it all worked out before Saturday.

I take no connexion to FireChat. I start heard of it from L., and then I went to Google and YouTube. Subsequently reading and watching many reviews, I decided this was a valuable tool non just for the twenty-four hour period of the March just for so many other times in life. I remember even when I went to the Virgin Mobile FreeFest and how I drained my bombardment trying to text my friends. This would have made that day far less stressful. Delight notation many of the reviews online are from ii years agone; FireChat has made many improvements since so including encrypted private messages (source). Withal, please do your own homework and make your own determination as to whether this is a secure or valuable app.

L. offered a real life scenario for how FireChat could work Saturday: Assemble organizers into a private group conversation (a individual group conversation tin can have upward to 50 contacts), in addition to the public chatrooms you make. So, consider one big chatroom to publicize across all chapters, and smaller ones per charabanc. So, information technology would look like:

Chatroom (public, anyone can join and read if they know the name): "AllChapterBusesMainChannel"
Per-motorbus chatrooms (public, depending on comfort level perchance a double-decker would desire to make a private group chat):
"PittsburghChapterBusPublicChannel" (I suggest putting "public" in the name to emphasize to users that information technology is somewhat publicly attainable- sometimes it's hard to tell how far a message might reach- recollect of those who recall they're typing into the search bar on Twitter only they're actually tweeting)
Private group chat for bus drivers/captains (private, Yous make it, accept each bus captain tell you lot their username, so make a individual group chat) Don't add anyone to this unless you know who they are.
Private grouping conversation for organizers (private, You get in, have each organizer tell you their username, then make a private grouping chat) Don't add anyone to this unless you know who they are.

The success of chatrooms is the ability to become quick information. If you use chatrooms on the day of the march or any major event, it's not a place for responses like "wow" or to report on news subsequently the fact. Go along the lines clear so readers don't accept to wade through texts to detect reports nigh a missing child, route change, shots fired, or a marcher going into diabetic shock. Private chats are where you lot can be chatty, chatrooms are where you can stay informed.

From L.: "I can't stress this enough- FireChat allows you to communicate using your phone without cellular data- for a volatile consequence with thousands of people, I consider it a key safety motion that anybody can make- If they know well-nigh it. It's free. Information technology works. It could be the best manner to talk to a crowd and/or your loved ones- anything from a warning about a rough police officer, to posting encouraging letters, to letting thousands of people know most a route change. Please ask me whatsoever questions yous want- This tool is incredible and will only improve the Women's March."

Download FireChat from the Apple tree Store or the Google Play Store.

If you accept more information most FireChat or whatsoever advice tips for the Women'south March please share in the comments below. Knowledge, and communicating that knowledge to others, is power!