

Show HN: "Dropbox for Wi-Fi" - niklas_a
http://www.instabridge.com
Since the server just went down:
Since the site is having problems:
Vimeo video: http://vimeo.com/54228044
Android app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.instabridg...
Blog: http://blog.instabridge.com/
======
SODaniel
Dropbox for Wi-Fi? I haven't even gotten past the first page of instabridge
and I already think the tag-line is more confusing then explanatory.

Do you anything that has to do with shared cloud storage or collaboration? If
not, just don't compare to Dropbox just to try to seem disruptive or give
yourself an 'air' of success even before launch.

Also: Frontpage explains nothing about what the service does. I would try
boiling it down to a few short bullets or an effective one-liner instead of
leaning on people knowing what dropbox does and somehow apply it to your
model.

~~~
logn
DropBox for wifi, as in, I have access on all my devices and can assign/revoke
permissions with friends. Maybe Airbnb of Wifi is better?

Also, the homepage summed it up for me nicely.

~~~
niklas_a
I wanted to write AirBnb for Wi-Fi initially. But our product manager stopped
me. A sad day for the world.

Samuel - if you are reading this, look what you have done!

------
niklas_a
Hi, Niklas from Instabridge here. To expand a bit on the "X for Y"
description: Instabridge makes it easy to sync wifi credentials across
different devices, share credentials with friends, and revoke access. The
Dropbox analogy has been proven to be an effective one-sentence way of giving
people an idea of what Instabridge is about, but of course there are
differences between wifi access and file storage, so that's as far as it can
be stretched.

Apart from trying to solve the usability issues with wifi, we also support
sharing of hotspots with the entire Instabridge community. This is intended
for cafés, restaurants, and so on.

We've had a short beta run in the Nordics, and launched globally a couple of
days ago at LAUNCH 2013 (where we won the "Best International Startup" prize.
Yay, us!). I'm a long time HN reader and have seen many "Show HN" posts during
the years. I'm really eager to read what you guys have to say, both the good
and the bad.

~~~
Udo
Hey Niklas, thanks for sharing your startup with us! It looks great and it's
absolutely a service I'd like to use. Maybe it's more like a "social network
for wifi passwords" but whatever ;)

Here's the thing though: my Android phone doesn't need this, it's got 3G and
that's generally enough so I don't go through the hassle of turning on the
battery-sucking WiFi just so it can notify me of new emails a bit faster.

What _does_ need an app like this is my laptop. Any plans for OS X / Windows /
Linux clients?

~~~
niklas_a
OS X, Windows, Linux: Yes, yes and yes!

Now we say that we sync passwords that's only between Android devices. I think
the real killer is when we make an app your laptop that sync via bluetooth
from your phone.

Great that your 3G is working so well, for some reason I always have really
bad coverage and am constantly asking for the Wi-Fi password.

~~~
Udo
Bluetooth sync would be fine, as long as the laptop itself would be allowed to
keep those entries stored until next sync.

> Great that your 3G is working so well

Where are you at? I'm mostly running around in Germany, UK, and well-connected
parts of Asia so that's probably where my bias comes from ;)

------
ewoutkleinsmann
When I read "Dropbox for Wi-Fi" I thought the app would be something like a
shared folder between clients in a local Wi-Fi network.

"Couple your Wi-Fi passwords to your FB account and easily share them with
friends" would have been a clearer description for me.

I really like the idea, though. I sincerely hope it will catch on.

~~~
networked
Perhaps "Google Docs for Wi-Fi" would be a better analogy for the invitation
system?

Edit: "Social Wi-Fi" or "social Wi-Fi sharing" would probably be the best
thing to call this instead of "X for Wi-Fi" (if it weren't for the existence
of <http://www.socialwifi.net/>).

~~~
ollysb
I'm still a bit confused about what it does, "share your passwords securely
through facebook"?

EDIT: read the about page, maybe "Share your wifi password securely with your
facebook friends" or "Never have to ask for a wifi password from your facebook
friends"

------
vineet
It would be awesome if you guys took this to the next step: let me share my
wifi to all my Facebook friends (or for some people anyone) as long as they
have signed up to share their wifi with me as well.

(Great idea. I also don't like the tagline.)

~~~
niklas_a
You can do that already, sorta. Play around with it and let me know if it's
what you imagined or if there's anything we should add.

~~~
vineet
The sorta part is a small problem. It makes my life easier if you have the
gaming built in. (Also it might help your viral spread).

I will definitely play with it.

------
bobwaycott
Sorry, but "Dropbox for WiFi" pretty immediately invokes a product like
Apple's AirDrop feature, where one can--to quote from Apple's site[1]--"[d]rag
and drop a file to send it wirelessly to someone on the same network."

This is exactly what I expected to see the app do--ad hoc file sharing between
devices on the same network.

You have chosen a poor descriptor.

[1]: <http://www.apple.com/osx/whats-new/#sharing>

~~~
ecubed
Also thought the same thing. Assumed it was going to be AirDrop for Windows
and/or Linux.

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Groxx
Since the site is having problems:

Vimeo video: <http://vimeo.com/54228044>

Android app:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.instabridg...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.instabridge.android)

Blog (which seems to be working): <http://blog.instabridge.com/>

And text-only Google cache the above came from, which has a couple other
links, but not much to show:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.ins...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.instabridge.com&hl=en&strip=1)

~~~
tjoff
Those are some truly nasty app permissions. They should at least explain why
they feel a need for them (yes, I can see why they would want many of them but
at the very least they should explain it).

~~~
niklas_a
I agree, we did our best to keep the app permissions at a bare minimum. But I
guess you can say we failed. As soon as you start doing anything interesting
you want a lot of permissions.

But good point. I'll update the Google Play description.

------
lancefisher
The video was more explanatory than anything. Great job with it. I'll be
waiting for the iPhone version. I'm not sure if you can access the Wi-Fi
settings through the SDK on iPhone, but it looks like they've done it on
Android. Cool app!

~~~
niklas_a
Thanks! I'm glad you like it! iOS is unfortunately a bit restricted on the Wi-
Fi front. Hopefully Apple will open it up in the future.

~~~
seven800
Even a copy and paste of the password would be useful, like 1Password does.

------
latortuga
Cool app, I like the idea of it. I installed it and went through the
verification process in the app and two problems: first, the verification text
message it sent to me was auto-populated into the box (I suspect this to be
some debug code that got shipped accidentally). Second, it couldn't actually
connect to my Wifi using my password despite entering it multiple times, even
resetting my router's wifi password.

~~~
niklas_a
The auto population is actually supposed to be a feature. We shamelessly
looked at what WhatsApp did and did the same thing ourselves.

Ouch on the router passwords. Any chance I could get you to send an email to
niklas a.t. instabridge dot com with your name and type of router?

------
andrewpi
Great job on the video.. seems pretty professionally done and explained the
purpose of the app with clarity.

~~~
niklas_a
Thank you so much! It's a lot of work behind it, all done on a scrappy startup
budget. Bonus points if anyone can spot all the references to HN/Reddit
related stuff in it.

~~~
polshaw
Very nice, I could only spot OAG. How did you handle the music?

As for the product, there are a couple of things that aren't clear; do you
actually end up connecting directly to your friends' wifi, or are you routed
through their phone? IE can I turn my phone's wifi off and they are still able
to access my network? It also comes across that my friends' friends will
automatically get access to my network.. don't like that. I imagine it's
probably configurable, but that's not made clear.

~~~
niklas_a
Ok, we should probably clarify that then. Everything is routed to their
home/office router. Once you've given access your phone is out of the
equation.

------
notmarkus
The "Don't have an Android phone?" link brings you to an early access signup
page. Can this be used on a device besides Android? While I have a droid and
really like the idea, it doesn't help me if all of my friends (all of them
iPhone users) are unable to use it.

~~~
niklas_a
We can do iOS. The user experience would not be as nice as on Android, we'd
need to work with profiles but it's definitely doable.

Invite your friends and as soon as we release the iOS version we'll let your
friends now.

------
bitskits
I am super interested in this, and I think it is a fantastic idea. One
critical problem (for me): I don't use Facebook. I look forward to seeing the
address book integration, or even better, G+.

~~~
niklas_a
You can use the address book too! No Facebook required.

~~~
bitskits
I could have sworn I saw that address book integration was upcoming (not
available now). My mistake! Thanks for the heads up. That said, G+ sign in
would still be cool. :)

------
nigelsampson
Dropbox for Wi-Fi seems a more confusing description that just "Wi-Fi password
sync".

This happens out of the box on Windows 8 (when tied to a Microsoft account)
and freaked me out a little when it first happened. Took a work tablet home
for some testing and found it connected to my Wi-Fi automatically. Had me
hunting for security problems before I realised what had happened.

~~~
niklas_a
Yes, I think that's a great move by Microsoft. Let's hope they Instabridge
enable it too so that's it's just as easy to share it with your friends!

------
shloime
While I agree you need to get rid of the "Dropbox for Wi-Fi" tagline, that is
one hell of a well done promo video.

~~~
niklas_a
Thank you! It's a lot of work put into it, all with a scrappy startup budget.

------
davekinkead
Nice to see an explanation video that isn't just stick figures and animation.
It was really slick - informative, humorous, and on brand (love that your
socks match your brand's colour).

Agree that dropbox for wi-fi is confusing. Why not something like 'easy wi-fi
sharing' or the like.

PS - where was this filmed? Geneva?

~~~
niklas_a
Glad you noticed the socks! It's all filmed in Stockholm, Sweden.

------
felipelalli
I prefer WifiPass:
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.movile.wp>

~~~
niklas_a
Cool app! Why do you prefer it? Any special feature you feel that Instabridge
is missing?

------
sp332
I'm a little confused on how you keep the password private. Can't an Android
user just go to Settings->Wifi and look at the current network password?

~~~
niklas_a
Nope, but it's available in plain text if you root the phone. That's why we
only suggest you share with people you trust.

There are a bunch of stuff we could do to prevent even that.

------
nodata
For Android: <http://blog.qr4.nl/QR-Code-WiFi.aspx>

~~~
niklas_a
That's really cool. Would be cool to do the same thing with NFC now that most
phones have it.

~~~
nodata
I think this one might do it...
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.jessechen....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.jessechen.instawifi)

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ramirez60
I think this is awesome..but I have almost no friends with android. Do you
guys have a timeline for the iOS port?

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ominous
I'm guessing you can still see the password in wpa_supplicant at least when
connected to the network ?

------
cmicali
Loved the video - funny, a little cute, and not overdone. Great job!

~~~
niklas_a
Thank you so much! It's a lot of work behind it, all done on a scrappy startup
budget. Kudos if you can spot all the references to HN/Reddit related stuff in
it.

------
joeblau
While the name is confusing, the concept is pretty awesome.

------
plg
how about "browsing patterns of strangers get attributed to your network
connection"

