Walkie Talkie for Librem 5

Hardware Librem 5
1

I was wondering if there exists an app to make your smartphone works like a talkie walkie using Wifi or bluetooth, to avoid cellular network.
Someone pointed out the Serval Project (Idea: Purism should team up with the Serval Project).
However, if I understand correctly their objectives, it is to create a mesh between nearby smartphones, and thus, communications would need to pass through different devices before reaching the intended person.

Even if I’m really interested by this idea, would something simpler be possible to allow two people not too far away from each other to communicate privately without needing a network, whatever it is ?

I don’t know much about electronic, but would it be possible to add in a future version of the librem 5 a chip to use walkie talkie radio frequency, in a secure manner ?

3 Likes
2

It is certainly possible. You can prove the principle by doing it between two laptops. Set up an ad-hoc WiFi connection and stream audio using VLC. It’s not a proper solution, but it should work.

I don’t think the range would be great with WiFi though. That’s where mesh networks are kind of useful.

A radio transceiver for walkie-talkie frequency seems to me like something that would be best implemented as a USB dongle or something that plugs into the audio jack.