
Meshkit - jdowner
https://www.opengarden.com/meshkit.html
======
cocktailpeanuts
This is very unfortunate piece of technology. And I'm not saying this
ironically.

This is the type of technology that will benefit the most number of people if
open sourced, but despite what these guys call themselves ("Open"garden), it's
not open at all.

I'm guessing it's because they've already raised near $13MM
[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/open-
garden](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/open-garden) and they can't
afford to just let go of the tech (I'm guessing they're probably hoping at
this point to get acquired by some large company for their tech, but not even
sure if they have a patent-worthy tech since I'm guessing they use iOS and
Android API underneath) If they didn't raise this much money they could have
made the decision to just open it up if they really think this will change the
world.

As much as I hate ICOs, I would like to see this type of tech being open
sourced and the creators trying to make money with open protocols rather than
getting stuck in the old mindset of trying to make money by petty licensing in
the age of open source.

Also, note that there's a better alternative if you're trying to implement
near field P2P AND you're OK with using someone else's proprietary tech
[https://developers.google.com/nearby/connections/overview](https://developers.google.com/nearby/connections/overview)

I looked into this field a while ago and found that there's nothing out there
that's completely open. For a genre of technology that claims to liberate
communication, it's super ironic how it's the opposite.

~~~
marknadal
We have tackled a protocol to solve ad-hoc mesh network data transmission in
P2P environments.

It is MIT/ZLIB/Apache2 Open Source licensed:
[https://github.com/amark/gun](https://github.com/amark/gun)

I explain how the P2P logic works in this tech talk:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fCPRY-9hkc&t=3s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fCPRY-9hkc&t=3s)

We also have end-to-end encryption now working:
[https://github.com/amark/gun/wiki/auth](https://github.com/amark/gun/wiki/auth)

What we're missing, is we need adapters for Bluetooth, etc. Andre Staltz (of
CyclesJS fame) has already added React Native bindings (
[https://github.com/staltz/gun-asyncstorage](https://github.com/staltz/gun-
asyncstorage) ), which I'm hoping some of those tools (like Phonegap,
Nativescript) have bridges for Bluetooth?

~~~
BuildTheRobots
That was a fantastic talk; thank you for the link.

For anyone else confused (it might just have been me) but the URL is correct,
title of the talk is "Nordic.js 2017 • Mark Nadal - The Design and Evolution
of Event-Driven Databases" or "How to build a global scale, P2P, mesh
network?"

~~~
marknadal
That is an honor to hear, thank you for the feedback. :) :)

Was there anything I didn't address, or didn't have time to go into more
detail on, that I can answer for you?

~~~
BuildTheRobots
I have to be honest, for an idiot like me it was absolutely perfect.

Here's what we're trying to achieve, why we're trying to achieve it and some
nice blocks that work towards doing that (with the idea that you make them
modular enough and can bypass them).

I can only imagine a real world implementation ends up having all the edge
cases in the world, but you gave me a great insight into what some of them are
likely to be :)

------
stupidcar
Nice idea, but despite the "Open" in the name of the company, this is all
based on a proprietary protocol. The internet has done pretty well so far by
being based on open protocols and standards. I don't think it's a good idea to
change that.

------
westbywest
Yikes, their case study showing a map with pinpoints for DNC protestors in
Philadelphia is an alarming illustration of the capacity for these peer-to-
peer comms apps to be abused. I wonder if the FireChat participants at the
time were aware of the location tracking. [https://www.opengarden.com/case-
studies.html](https://www.opengarden.com/case-studies.html)

------
aw3c2
Does not seem like a free and open standard so my tab was closed in seconds.

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mlaretallack
Sounds a bit like [http://www.servalproject.org](http://www.servalproject.org)

~~~
blacksmith_tb
Or Briar: [https://briarproject.org/](https://briarproject.org/)

~~~
manigandham
Or Telehash: [http://telehash.org/](http://telehash.org/)

~~~
hobofan
Why do none of these projects manage to publish a usable embeddable library (+
docs)? That could be so much more impactful than all the minimal demo-chat
apps built on top of the mesh network tech...

~~~
kawfey
Development in a vacuum, everyone wants to cash in, disagreements on protocols
or languages or politics or people.

I’m a big ham radio nut, and although the premise of the hobby is the
advancement of radio technology, everyone’s old, has their own way of doing
things, and has reinvented the wheel many times over. Logging programs, DX
clusters, remote radio interfaces, APRS programs and apps, satellite trackers,
you name it, there’s a dozen versions of everything.

I imagine this is common in technical hobbies.

------
shortoncash
Does this allow iOS and Android to talk to each other over the mesh without
reaching into the cloud? It says iOS and Android, but it doesn't seem to say
-between- iOS and Android.

------
solnyshok
is there any (sdr) usb radio that could be connected to android phone via usb-
on-the-go to reach devices within 1+ mile on unlicensed bands? to be used by
this or other open source mesh implementation, like
[http://servalproject.org/](http://servalproject.org/)

------
jewel
Something like this would work great in an urban environment if enough apps
used it. For non-urban environments the wifi range becomes a limiting factor.
I'm hoping that LTE Direct becomes a thing, since it has a much higher range.

Kind of a separate idea, but if the hardware ever became cheap enough, it'd be
great if the charger that shipped with these "LTE Direct" phones also included
an LTE chip so that it could participate in the mesh. It would be great for
disasters and also for overloaded network

That way you'd have a decent chance in a suburb to be able to have a no-data-
plan-necessary mesh network for devices of preteens or other minor uses where
paying for a data plan is too expensive. For example, a data connection for
your entertainment system in your car.

In order to connect such a mesh to the Internet without having to worry about
being the origin of someone else's traffic, the base stations would connect
over wifi to their home access point. All traffic would be relayed over the
Internet to the user's own base station, which would then send it to the
destination. That way the mesh doesn't have to have a lot of traffic but
someone can connect to the mesh without becoming the point of origin for
potentially malicious traffic. It also would reduce the load on the mesh since
traffic would only travel one or two hops.

------
dhat
Something similar is accomplished with
[http://thaliproject.org/](http://thaliproject.org/)

------
__andK
Very interesting - we've been looking at something very similar (though less
extensive) for bridging between BLE end devices and our cloud. It'd be
interesting to see what it'd take to get ble devices integrated and on the
mesh (battery requirements/mem requirements).

Right now we're just forwarding beacon packets to our database servers - but
this seems to provide a back/forth that'd be very useful (command/control &
ota updates)

Difficult to say without more detailed docs

------
inopinatus
I contacted Open Garden, interested to develop a product based on their
purported architecture that would be a useful in-the-field extension of my
established SaaS product.

The website indicates they see themselves as a solution vendor for specific
verticals. My application isn’t in the use cases on their list.

I did not hear back.

So much for MeshKit.

------
jtanderson
I think this is a really cool idea.

Is there a way for one to limit the amount of data that could go through your
device so that your data caps don't suffer from sending too much of somebody
else's data?

Edit: I see the "User control" feature, but it's not too specific about what
exactly publishing and subscribing means for you vs strangers on the same
mesh.

------
xoail
I am more excited about this project
[https://github.com/AntonTheDev/ExtendaBLE](https://github.com/AntonTheDev/ExtendaBLE)

Disclaimer: Created by one of my co-workers.

------
beobab
I want to see this working. I want to try it out myself. Sadly, I'm not part
of a multi-million customer company, so I don't know if I am the demographic
they are looking for.

------
mpolichette
I like this idea. I keep hoping that a solution with peer to peer networking
can help us overcome the problems we have with ISPs owning and controlling all
of our access to the internet.

------
louismerlin
If you like the concept, check out [http://ipfs.io](http://ipfs.io), great
team & concept

~~~
rtkwe
Not the same thing at all. IPFS doesn't do any mesh networking it handles file
distribution, storage and retrieval but doesn't do any of it's own networking
so it relies on some existing connectivity from what I can see.

~~~
cocktailpeanuts
I am pretty sure this also uses some existing connectivity tech such as
Apple's multipeer connectivity
[https://developer.apple.com/documentation/multipeerconnectiv...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/multipeerconnectivity)

At least IPFS guys open sourced everything for anyone to use. The "Open"garden
people had the guts to name themselves "open" despite it being opposite of
open.

~~~
rtkwe
That's not an existing link though until two devices using it come close
enough to communicate and the connection is established. If that were to count
any device with an ethernet port and an IP stack would be linked because "all"
you need to do is run a cable. Of course both devices have to have compatible
protocols to communicate but that doesn't mean they have a link established
until the connection is made.

IPFS is really neat and I'm glad it's open sourced but it's not a mesh
networking protocol. I'd love to see a combination of IPFS and a robust mesh
networking scheme. It'd be a pretty great way to bring internet like
functionality where there's no infrastructure without having to setup anything
other than having people bring their devices.

