bitchat* tested 40,000 ft in the air ✅

(well, technically about 35,057 ft)

I heard about someone testing bitchat* on an airplane and wanted to test it myself across 4 devices. Here is some of my feedback and experience:

Android + iOS ✅

Messages Sent ✅

Notifications✅ (when a bitchat* user is detected)

Panic Mode ✅

Proximity "Group Chat" ✅

Connecting to Users ✅❌

P2P Connectivity Issues:

Some devices failed to connect to each other and pick up on the mesh network, though they were right next to each other and 3/4 of the other devices could. To clarify, some devices could connect with each other, but it would be seemingly random which devices could see each other. Most devices could connect to 3/4 and the device they couldn't connect to was random, it wasn't the same phone that was having issues or for example Android vs iOS. There was only some connectivity issue between devices for connecting peer-to-peer, but typing in the proximity "group chat" it worked perfectly fine.

Failed Messages?

On some devices, there were cases where it looked like messages had gone through perfectly and delivered from one device, but on the other device it showed that it had received the message, but a small red ⚠️ icon displayed to the right of it. The message displayed on both phones, but on the receiving phone it showed the small red warning icon and it's not clear to me what that is indicative of. Naturally, I would assume it would be a sign of a message failed to send... but if I can see it on both devices, not sure. Did the device receive it, but the network struggles to refresh and confirm the action/message?

Random/Unidentified Devices?

Then, strangely I managed to pickup other "users" or devices? Normally, your default name will be anonxxxx (numeric value) but when I stayed on the network a hexadecimal value was shown and I tried to connect to send a message, but failed. I'm not sure if this picked up on other devices with bluetooth on, but I don't think this is the case because you can pick up a lot more devices using bluetooth and in bitchat* I'm pretty sure you can only see/connect with other users within your proximity that have bluetooth and location services enabled as well as active in the app? I tried to connect to the other users to send a message, but it eventually failed.

📝UX Suggestion:

When changing your username, at least within mobile, you can click on your name to change the characters let's say from "anon9999" to "yuurinbee" and if you click out of the box, it doesn't save for others to see, but still shows that's what you typed. I think there are 2 options here that make more sense to me:

1. If you want to make it so when you click out of the area it doesn't save, then reset the name to the default so the user knows it didn't save on the network and only on your local GUI.

2. If you hit "enter" or click out of the box, it automatically saves your name changes.

✋Panic Mode (EPIC)

I tested this feature and it did not disappoint. This safety feature built in is exactly what privacy protection (emphasis on the protection) is all about. Triple tapping on the logo (top left) will reset your changes/settings and wipe chat log immediately and change your username (ie: anon9999 to anon4823). If I'm not mistaken, it wipes your private p2p logs as well as the general proximity chat.

End Result: It works. ✅

It's not entirely consistent, but I can safely say that bitchat* worked ~35,000 ft in the air on an airplane going roughly 500+ mph. If that isn't impressive for a privacy and encrypted messenger app (without internet) I don't know what is.