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Comments (225)

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  modeless
  It's criminal that cell phones are bristling with incredibly advanced radio technology and yet they are by law not allowed to communicate directly with each other over a distance of more than a couple hundred meters without assistance from a licensed and centrally controlled base station. Meanwhile a $10 walkie talkie using primitive stone-age radio technology can go many miles with zero infrastructure, but by law is not allowed to be used for data transmission. This is a choice our governments have made, not something inherent to the technology.
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  nicois
  One missing feature: deferred message propagation. As far as I understand, while messages will be rebroadcast until a TTL is exhausted, there is no mechanism to retain in-transit messages and retransmit them to future peers. While this adds overheads, it's table stakes for real-life usage.You should be able to write a message and not rely on the recipient being available when you press send. You should also be able to run nodes to cache messages for longer, and opt in to holding messages for a greater time period. This would among other things allow couriers between disjoint groups of users.
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  Philip-J-Fry
  This feels like something Apple should do with iPhones.Find My and air tags was already a huge success because of the ubiquitous nature of iPhones.Apple could add this to iPhone, sell it as privacy focussed. Let you message anyone in your iMessage contacts with a new bubble colour. Propagate over Bluetooth when you don't have internet.I can see a snazzy Apple reveal for this showcasing it's use on a cruise ship, in a packed stadium, and then for the meme factor, 2 astronauts on a space walk. It writes itself.
• simonmales
  It's getting movement in tough political environments like Uganda: https://www.archyde.com/bitchat-surges-to-1-in-uganda-amid-p...And natural disasters like in Jamaica https://www.gadgets360.com/cryptocurrency/news/bitchat-becom...
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  elzbardico
  I sometimes wonder if we couldn't have completely different public internet topologies ifa) Wireless local networking was invented and popularized earlier b) We had transitioned earlier to IPV6 or some other protocol with an address space as huge, thus making NAT not as pervasive as it became. b) We didn't have hordes of VCs financing walled gardens and social networks.
• thoughtpalette
  Bring back Cybiko's, we can message there instead.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybiko
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  alecco
  Meshtastic + budget kit ($10-$35) is way better. BlueTooth alone is kind of useless. It's max ~100 meters/yards vs 2-20 km (12 miles). And the community is great.
• prathje
  There are a lot of old and new mobile applications doing this. If there is anyone doing some research in this space, maybe take a look at our "DisruptaBLE" implementation for delay tolerant networking on embedded devices: https://openreview.net/forum?id=xy3Y6cLOV2
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  maqp
  Could someone please explain in what situation do you use a BlueTooth messaging app? Like, even BT5 range won't exceed 400 meters. What good is this? You're not going to send images to journalists from protests with it (you'd do wisely to keep it in airplane mode until you get home and then you'd upload them to their securedrop or whatever), and you don't need off-band security to let the kids know it's dinner time.
• zhyder
  Love it. Wonder if it's viable for citizen journalism in warzones and areas of civil unrest, with the larger size of photos (and short videos), given the inherently slow transfer rates and battery life implications of going thru multiple hops before Internet-exiting the area that's otherwise Internet-offline. What's the back-of-the-envelope math here on viable bandwidth?Wifi obviously has higher bandwidth, but I guess it isn't viable as a mesh, or is there any trick with turning on/off hotspots on phones dynamically that'd make it viable? (Afaik older phones made you pick between being a hotspot or being a regular wifi client, but at least some newer ones seem to allow both simultaneously.)I'm definitely hoping for a future with wider support for C2PA (content credentials on images) on phone cameras to make these photos power citizen journalism. So far Samsung S25 and Pixel 10 support C2PA in the camera hardware: need other phone makers (especially Apple) to get on board already... if you're an iPhone user, please help yell at Apple support etc!Aside: I registered a domain and plan to build a citizen journalism news feed for such photos (and uncut videos). I see it as the antidote to Instagram et al's feeds that're full of AI slop (and plenty of fakery even before AI-generated imagery got big). And it's essential to truth, democracy and ultimately (maybe I'm too idealistic here) peace. Aside to the aside: wish some of us techies banded together to build "peace tech" as a new sector in tech, DM if interested in brainstorming or working together.
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  consoleable
  Hopefully, the browser Bluetooth API will receive more support (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Bluetoo...). Web-based PWAs are more suitable because apps are subject to app store censorship.
• atwrk
  Pronouncing this out loud I wonder whether the name has been chosen on purpose for the marketing effect: "Where's my bitchat"
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  jagermo
  I don't know. I do not like Jack Dorey's involvement. Not a big fan of his.I'd rather use Briar (https://briarproject.org/)
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  Kapura
  choosing to build an application on top of bluetooth is like saying, "we've constructed a highway over the most stable terrain known to man: volcanic marshes prone to seasonal flooding."how do you know when the messaging app is broken, and how do you know when bluetooth is just exercising its ability to hate mankind?
• devin-2030
  Headline made me think of FidoNet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FidoNet
• ifh-hn
  It doesn't matter how hard I try to see: bit-chat, my brain defaults to: bitch-at, and if I scan it: bitch-hat.
• duxup
  Bluetooth range would seem to make this unreliable or useless in many areas?
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  j1elo
  What are good file transfer apps that can be used in similar scenarios? (to be clear about the usage model: communications on a plane)* I see LocalSend and LANDrop frequently suggested on HN but in my experience they rely on having a central Wifi router. No good.* Android's QuickShare comes included by default, but it's buggy. Just yesterday it failed on me (I'm on an uncommunicated boat): it was defaulting to Bluetooth, so I had to reboot both phones to finally make it work over Wifi Direct. Not to speak about the "oh damn, you have an iPhone" scenario. Not ideal.Anything else? (to remark: for airplane-like situations so no access to Internet and no central router)
• maelito
  Does not work without Google Play services. No-go.
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  j1elo
  This has released tags since back to July 2025. Does anyone know if it's being actively used to exfiltrate news from Iran right now? (if someone's been living under a rock: [1][2])[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46667491[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46573384
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  rm30
  The project is interesting, the concept too, the idea of indipendent communication tools also.I'll tell you a story.Usain Bolt, the world 100/200m recordman, is not faster than cheeta. He needs a motorbike or a car to be beat a cheeta. But even with a car or motorbike is unlikely is going to overtak a cheeta on the ground of savannah.This to tell you are thinking about optimizations of a system while you need to choose the right system for the environment.A 433 MHz based link and a strong modulation is much suitable solution than a BT class 2 device included in the phone.And here the real hack, most of phones has an integrated FM receiver, higher sensibility than BT, a simple FM transmitter (88-108 MHz) and problem solved.
• reconnecting
  Here are original posts:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44485342https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45929358https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46364146
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  boozelclark
  This is an interesting enhancement using Meshtastic to expand the range of bitchat https://github.com/meshtastic/firmware/discussions/7542
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  canterburry
  Finally...a dedicated app to bitch at people.
• StephenMelon
  The problem with the App Store model is that the app could just be switched off by the powers that be. It would be better if something like this could be built into the OS. If one decentralised use case took off, then there could be other applications, like hosting the internet archive, wikipedia or LLMs, or digital cash. Might need waystations to get into rural areas but it sounds like the best long term way to secure the free internet.
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  JulianHart
  This would've been useful during the Iran shutdowns last week. Bluetooth mesh is one of the few things that keeps working when carriers go dark.
• brk
  It's a neat concept, but in critical scenarios where you are trying to distribute information because traditional wireless methods are down, methods like this can make it easy for users to be targeted via RF transmissions.Hard to imagine things like this getting much beyond the "cute" stage.
• Tooster
  Cap your html bodies to 75ch width for comfortable reading. Minimalism doesn't conflict with nice layout and it's 1 line of css.
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  mikecamara
  What happened to that fire chat app that did the same thing back in 2014 or something?
• deknos
  is there an actual real good comparison of bitchat vs. briar from all sides? protocols, cryptography, supplychain, which software stack, usability and so on?
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  anidsiam
  Jack Dorsey is definitely a smart guy, I believe there is a big reason behind it. I wish he will surprise us to make it capable global communication. But my question is how long it will take to work it for a long distance?
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  russnes
  Why are these apps on bluetooth? I'm surprised no one has come up with a way to transmit data over local ad hoc wifi networks, it must surely be more simple if you could make some sort of transient hot spot
• nubinetwork
  Considering that my Bluetooth headset disconnects when I even think about looking at my microwave, I can't trust Bluetooth any further than 10 feet...If you want kilometers of range in wide open air, give anything lora based a try.
• Angostura
  I work at a hospital. I think this could be a really interesting emergency fallback system in the event that there is catastrophic failure of mobile, bleep and WiFi
• russnes
  Has Signal ever considered implementing any sort of peer to peer message propagation?
• kelseydh
  I've heard about technology like this for over a decade. Have never encountered a use case (even no coverage at music festivals) where it once became viable.
• rm30
  I'd consider this app a proof of concept, with limited practical applications.The story of using Bluetooth in a cruise ship to chat with family sounds like it’s pushing the limits of physics; communication in those conditions is highly unreliable. Most of our phones have onboard a class 2 device (the lower range, 10-20m), the real world has walls to reduce the range, and a cruise ship's metal structure creates a Faraday cage effect.In case of protests, a jammer will silence all devices.Anyway, I was thinking that in extreme cases we could modify our devices for communication at a community level—for example, creating a Wi-Fi mesh network with routers, or some other long-range protocol (e.g., LoRa).
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  sgt
  Thought this could have been used in Iran but I guess it was a bit immature still.
• ddtaylor
  I am using Briar and Session right now for this.Jack makes cool stuff, but I fell off BlueSky and I have little desire to engage with the "community" on there. It's very echo-chambery like every social media and I feel it's mostly identical to X or Truth just a different echo chamber. It seemed like BlueSky was being sold as a solution to what happened with Twitter and I feel like it didn't make true on it's promise.
• anon
  undefined
• kbouck
  Clever name that changes depending on where you put the space
• dim13
  Finally I see some people around. Was pretty lonely, as it launched.
• pbiggar
  We did an evaluation on Bitchat as we had also built our own and needed to choose whether to continue with it or look at Bitchat instead. In the end, after the evaluation we chose Bitchat. See more here https://updates.techforpalestine.org/bitchat-for-gaza-messag...
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  budududuroiu
  Seeing Jack committing to this repo is kinda wild to me. I also wish I had fuck-you money and could spend my day engrossed in whatever I find interesting
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  lazzlazzlazz
  Every time I've logged into Bitchat, nobody appears to be online - across the entire United States.
• kkfx
  My verdict is negative: BT has too limited a range. Can you communicate in a crowd? Yes, sure, the density of BT hosts can be very high, but can you imagine a crowd in the street communicating via messages instead of face-to-face? Can it handle communications for an entire city of a few million people with useful overhead? I strongly doubt it.We've had interesting mesh network experiments in the past (maybe some here remember Fonera), and some are trying on various bands, e.g. World Mobile, but none of these can realistically work unless prepared and deployed in advance, which happens through public choices, meaning public networks built to be truly resilient, rather than centrally controlled.So, while technically interesting, they are not realistically usable in civil war situations. Instead, it's interesting to think about how vulnerable surveillance devices are in these situations, like modern connected cars and smartphones, which can operate a mesh centrally, for example, to guide and block cars at strategic road junctions and centrally acquire location data from the "meat-bots" carrying smart devices with them.If I were a citizen in a civil war, I'd be afraid of the connected car and would stay far away from my smartphone if I decided to take action. If I were the ruler of a country that can't make its own cars and smart devices, I'd block them by any means necessary due to the serious national security risk they pose.We need open hardware and FLOSS imposed by law, making it ILLEGAL to sell black boxes and fund research for verifiable hardware. Not to believe that the latest mesh app is good for anything without giving a single thought to real-world use.
• senchalover23
  bithcat is out for like.. a long time. Why is hyping now?
• throwaway758439
  [dead]
• senchalover23
  Bitchat is out for a while now, why is hyoping now?