redgridtactical

5 ms·

1.
Show HN: Topo maps and Meshtastic mesh networking in MGRS navigator(redgridtactical.com)
3 points by redgridtactical 5mo ago|0 comments
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Ask HN: Anyone using Meshtastic/LoRa for non-chat applications?
14 points by redgridtactical 6mo ago|0 comments
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
Most of the conversation around counter-drone is about the defeat side but honestly the bigger problem is coordination. If you have a drone sighting, how do you actually tell someone else exactly where it is?
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
Thank you!
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Show HN: Coordinate converter in a single HTML file(redgridtactical.github.io)
3 points by redgridtactical 6mo ago|0 comments
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
Yeah exactly. Apple has a history of quietly changing undocumented behavior between point releases. Building on top of that is asking for a fun debugging session six months from now. The GATT handshake adds a couple seconds of latency on re
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
Nice list, thanks. Meshtastic bridge is on the V2.0 roadmap so the app can route through LoRa hardware for multi-kilometer range. Being able to detect and pair with these devices over BLE is exactly how I'd want the integration to work
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
Yes, definitely as a fallback! Currently working on a new build. If you are interested in testing please see the following link to become a tester! https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.redgrid.red_grid_li...
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
Hadn't seen that repo, really interesting find. Using undocumented Continuity fields for discovery is tempting but I wouldn't want to build on something Apple could break in any iOS update. I'm doing a GATT characteristic han
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
Good call, I've looked at Meshtastic's approach. They use CoreBluetooth on iOS with a known GATT service UUID for discovery, which is basically what I'm doing now. The main difference is they're discovering LoRa radios (
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Ask HN: How do you handle peer-to-peer discovery on iOS without a server?
7 points by redgridtactical 6mo ago|6 comments
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
Apologies for posting the incorrect link to the Red Grid MGRS test. Below is the corrected link, thank you for bringing that to my attention! https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.redgrid.red_grid_li...
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
If anyone is interested in testing the Android versions, please use the following link: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.redgrid.redgridtact... I welcome all feedback. My goal with this app is to make some
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
You're right, I was wrong about iOS 17 auto-negotiating Coded PHY. After digging deeper, Apple did support it briefly in iOS 13.4 betas but pulled it in iOS 14 and it hasn't returned. CoreBluetooth still doesn't expose PHY se
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
For the time being yes, I am looking for Android testers (need 12 to publish and I am a solo dev), if you are interested please reach out!
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
Thanks you! Just started working on this project based on systems I use, and have gripes with, in the military. No plans to abandon it, but I understand your concern. This is the project I actually want to use myself so it's going to k
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
If you ever do get the chance to use, let me know what you think!
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
All true, but the tradeoff is zero additional hardware cost and zero setup. For a family hike, small team, or a hunting party staying within a few hundred meters of each other, pulling out your phones beats buying and configuring radios for
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
Yeah iOS supports BLE Coded PHY since the iPhone 12 / iOS 14. The tricky part is negotiating it at the library level. flutter_blue_plus doesn't fully expose Coded PHY yet so I'd need to handle it through platform channels on
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
Thank you! Would love some feedback if you try it out!
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
There's haptic feedback when a peer connects or disconnects, and the ghost marker system gives you a visual alert when someone drops off the grid. Battery wise, there's an Ultra Expedition mode that drops BLE updates to once every
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
BLE Coded PHY is on my radar. The theoretical range boost is huge, something like 4x over standard in ideal conditions. The challenge right now is that flutter_blue_plus (the BLE library I'm using) has limited support for negotiating C
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
Haha fair point. In open terrain you get maybe 50-100m which I agree, not far. In practice it's more useful than it sounds though. You don't need miles of range when the point is "where did my buddy go 5 minutes ago." An
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
Thanks, yeah the ghost markers ended up being one of those features that came out of necessity. Once I accepted that the BLE range was never going to be amazing, the question became what happens when someone drops off? Felt wrong to just re
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
Definitely was one of the use cases I designed around!
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
It's not long range by any stretch. The use case is more "my group split up on a trail and I want to know which fork they took" vs "track someone across a mountain." The ghost marker system helps here too. If someon
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
Meshtastic is great if you're willing to carry extra hardware. Everyone in your group needs a LoRa radio (which can range from $30-50 each), and you need to pair them, flash the firmware, configure channels, etc. For a SAR team or prep
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Show HN: Red Grid Link – peer-to-peer team tracking over Bluetooth, no servers(github.com)
54 points by redgridtactical 6mo ago|36 comments
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
I feel like this will have a short shelf life. OpenAI is going to notice traffic through that Codex endpoint that doesn't match its usage patterns and lock it down.
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by redgridtactical 6mo ago
That's an awesome story and meaning behind that. Thanks for sharing!

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