Offline Mesh Networks and Hybrid Mesh Networks

Mesh networks have been around for a long time. They’re used in industrial, military, and telecommunications settings, to share information over large distances without depending on an Internet connection or any satellite-based service. At Bridgefy, we’re proud to say that we’ve finally made mesh-networks available for mobile devices!

There are two types of Bridgefy mesh networks: 100% offline, and hybrid mesh networks. Both of these can be used for private messaging or for broadcast messaging.

Offline Mesh Networks

Offline mesh networks can have an unlimited amount of devices connected to each other, without a single device needing access to the Internet for information to be transferred! Imagine being in the middle of a large concert crowd, at a school, or at a football stadium. All that is needed is for devices to be running the Bridgefy SDK, and to turn on their Bluetooth antenna. Information can then hop from one device to another, and another, until it gets to the person you want to reach, like this:

There can be a distance of up to 330ft between two devices, so when there are other devices in the middle, they act as bridges so that you can cover larger distances. The amount of bridges is unlimited!

You can also broadcast information so that everyone nearby gets your alert/ad/message! Learn more.

Hybrid Mesh Networks

Hybrid mesh networks also consist of many devices connected directly to each other, but uses the few Internet connections that might be available to send information to the Internet or to download content from the Internet and then share it locally offline. Similar to an Offline Mesh Network, a Hybrid Mesh Network also uses Bluetooth Low-Energy to connect devices, but also includes at least one access to the Internet. Some devices can have access to a Wi-Fi network or a data plan, and can receive or send information from the Internet and then distribute it offline to nearby devices, like this:

Imagine that the laptop represents your company, at any distance away from your users. You can send an alert, message, or notification like you currently do, except that the users that have Internet access can receive it and then distribute it offline. This lets you reach an exponential amount of more users than you would otherwise!

We love adding new features and functionalities to the Bridgefy technology so that it may constantly serve new use cases. We’d love to hear your ideas!