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Ask HN: Any hardware folks want to help make a next-gen souped up Walkie Talkie?
4 points by Jonovono on Nov 2, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 13 comments
Been thinking about this idea since I went on a road trip & houseboating with some friends. We bought some walkie talkies to talk to each other, and I had a eureka moment about how much better it was using them than having to pick up the phone, unlock it, go to contacts, find your friend, call them, wait for the answer, say two things, hang up, repeat that again in 2 minutes to say something else.

I've kind of had it on the backburner, but this recent HN post had me thinking maybe there is something there. The first minute of every phone call is torture now (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33409109)

I havn't done much validation of the product besides personal experience and browsing Tiktok. This video of some girls in College using cheap walkie talkies at a bar went viral with people wanting to try it as well: https://www.tiktok.com/@hotmessexpress3155/video/7118519163416497450?is_from_webapp=v1&item_id=7118519163416497450&lang=en. It got 1 million likes. There are many more videos too.

I'm thinking we take the idea of walkie talkies to the next level:

1. Use something like this: https://www.ditto.live. Have it work with radio frequency, but also have bluetooth, wifi, etc ability.

2. P2P ability. If not able to reach, it can forward what needs to be forwarded with other devices in the network (possible?)

3. Ability to store and replay messages if not by the phone or in silent mode

4. Easier to use than existing walkie talkies

5. Ability to vibrate if getting a message

6. Other features?

Whats different with it than a phone? It's a small, lightweight fun to use device built for instant communication with the people you care to talk to.

I honestly don't know much about the tech in walkie talkies, but I just feel like there hasn't been much innovation in this space.



Links linkable:

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33409109

* https://www.tiktok.com/@hotmessexpress3155/video/71185191634...


I would like to see something like this done with a raspberry pi and voice enabled Briar type system for networking. (https://briarproject.org/)


What we all want is what we see in the Marvel films, where the Avengers can all talk to each other perfectly clearly in the middle of a raging battle.

It's called "telepathy".

Once Elon gets the Neuralink perfected and down to a middle class price tag, we'll all have it.

But in the meantime, perhaps this will suffice?

https://gotennapro.com/products/gotenna-pro-x2


Why wait for Neuralink? Bone-conduction headphones are available at blue collar price tags today.


Probably Elon Musk's advertisement army. "Telepathy" of emotions using implants ( It was spinal, not neural ) has already been done in I believe the 70's or so by some nutty British professor. ( And as with all muskrats firms, everything neuralink claims is a scaled up copy of something that already exists. )


next-gen ?

Build a phase sensitive radio using a plasma antenna array and make it frequency hop multiple white spaces. Don't use ancient crap like OFDM or FSK. Use a tailored scheme. Yes it will require a fat FPGA. Yes it will be shit expensive. But possible it is.


Now were talking. Thanks for the input.


I remember mobile phones with two way radios were popular in my hometown 20 years ago.

https://youtu.be/Du7W2nfXgiw?t=389


I watched the whole thing :/


make them bone conduction headphone style so your friends can be literally inside your head, and integrate the mic so it’s a small form factor.

I’ll take 1% equity for that suggestion thanks


There are a load of aspects to this.

You appear to be in Canada so you would probably need your device certified by Industry Canada to meet technical standards for several classes of radio transmitter to be legal to use. (unless everyone using the devices learns some technical stuff, takes a test, personally holds an amateur radio license, does not use encryption and does not use it for business)

Even with a business radio license the letter of the law may require equipment certification.

In the USA some walkie talkies are "licensed by rule", meaning you don't need a license for things like FRS radios so long as the particular model of radio is FCC certified.

The FCC regulations for some kinds of no-license-required walkie talkies do not allow transmission of digital voice or data. GMRS radios can send data bursts for location information once every 30 seconds which is no use for your plan.

In the USA, there is VHF MURS radio and very low speed data is allowed but I believe that MURS is not legal in Canada.

You would probably end up on the 900MHz band, where you can get a useable data radio.

There is a fundamental tradeoff between range and data rate. On an FM radio channel where an analog voice is hissy but understandable, you can only get a few hundred bytes per second of data, see the shannon-hartley theorem.

The range of direct communication from one walkie talkie to another highly depends on obstructions in the path of the radio signal.

If one person stands on top of a hill then sometimes the range is miles, but quite often if the person walks a couple of hundred feet so that the top of the hill is between them and the other station suddenly no communication at all.

In a city the range of one walkie talkie to another is often less than 150 feet.

Buildings with metallized windows and steel-reinforced-concrete walls and floors block VHF/UHF radio signals.

The range of direct communication between walkie talkies is much shorter in a town than out on a lake where there is nothing in the way.

Systems such as police radio use repeater stations on top of tall buildings and radio towers.

A few walls or floors between two 900MHz walkie talkies can easily block the signal. 2.4GHz gets even worse range.

You number 2 desire is called "mesh networking". There has been a lot of research on mesh networking in the last twenty years. The reality is that with small portable devices near the ground it is just not worth the hassle. The quality of the connection between devices frequently wildly varies. Transmitting often enough to figure out who is in range of who is a huge battery drain.

There is an existing thing called "network radio". Basically devices that look like a walkie talkie but take a SIM card, are actually a 3G/4G cellular data device and which do push-to-talk VOIP.

A "network radio" walkie talkie works by pressing the button and speaking then your voice comes out of other walkies talkies, even if other people are on the other side of the world, provided that people have cellular coverage.

Some of the "network radio" devices also connect to the zello app on a smartphone.


Awesome, I appreciate you writing this up.

"There is an existing thing called "network radio". Basically devices that look like a walkie talkie but take a SIM card, are actually a 3G/4G cellular data device and which do push-to-talk VOIP."

That's interesting to know.

Thanks a lot, some stuff to Google haha


Also there is gotenna who are burning a pile of venture capital money doing some sort of radio mesh thing.




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