Wi-Fi Walkie Talkie research

So what has been happening since my last post?

I was looking into Mr Mackie's layout comms to determine whether a wireless solution could be found. As most people have access to a smartphone of some description and these have wifi connectivity, I thought what better place to start than with something that is not going to cost you anything.

I set myself some loose parameters in determining what to rule in or out.

1) Is there an app either on Android or iPhone that could be used (sorry I have no idea about Microsoft smartphones)?
2) The app needed to be reasonably priced or free
3) The app had to be able to work in a private wifi LAN (i.e. not connected to the Internet)
4) It had to be easy to setup
5) Smallish storage footprint

The basic intention was to utilise a private wifi LAN to connect the smartphones to so that communication between operators of a layout could occur. For instance at exhibitions, at a large layout operating session, at a club, or anywhere that such 'private' communications would be required.

For my wifi LAN I utilised my Raspberry Pi as a wifi access point (see article elsewhere on how to set this up). Other people could set up there own private wifi LANs by using other devices. The range is purely dependent on your wifi access point's coverage.

After a number of weeks of part-time research I have come to the final recommendation of Android apps to use. Unfortunately I have no iThingy experience in this. There were some apps that could be used for both types of OS, but these needed Internet connectivity as the 'server' was online.

Apps researched

Zello - no good as logon requires access to the 'Zello' server via the Internet

Voxer - same Internet requirements as Zello

Tikl - needs access to Internet server. Needs access to phone or Facebook Contacts

WiFi Walkie Talkie - can unicast or broadcast but you need to know the IP address of each connected device. No 'Contact' or 'Connected/Visible' address book. Difficult to use

Wifi Intercom - needs a 'Contact' list for network but doesn't tell you how to do it. May not broadcast, only point to point.

WiFi Talkie - user interface not visually nice. Difficult to use

Wi-Fi Talkie Lite - immature user interface. No apparent 'Talk' feature

Virtual Walkie Talkie - this was one of the final two contenders.

• This app can be used both on public and private networks.
• For private networks it has the ability of either setting one of the connected devices as the master with an inbuilt server or set up a PC or Linux machine as the server. I tried setting up the Linux server on the Raspberry Pi but I was having problems. Might just be me so I can't comment on this aspect but it wouldn't be a show stopper.
• The user interface resembles a walkie talkie and you can select different channels to converse on. Might be handy for group defined channels i.e. central controller, yard controller, specific loco chat, or at exhibitions for different locations or people?
• It has a small storage footprint of 778k
• It requires Android 1.5 or above to use, so a good chance you could get an older Android device second hand if you do not have one readily available, or you want to carry a small amount for group usage

Android Intercom - this is the other final contender

• Can work in both private and public networks
• Easy to setup, no need to identify a master inbuilt server as it discovers who is on the network
• Requires storage footprint of 1.4M
• requires Android 2.1 and above
• sometime experienced an echo during testing but I wasn't sure what the cause of this was. Could be feedback between devices if to close together or the speed of the network wasn't fast enough, or there where to many concurrent conversations happening which delayed transmissions or repeated transmissions.
• it might just come down to setting some basic rules around correct radio etiquette!

So my recommendations at this point in time would be either Android Intercom or Virtual Walkie Talkie, in no particular order. Just give them a rty and see what works best.

I haven't had a chance to test in an operating session and also with JMRI Engine Driver running on the same device to see if this is an easy thing to switch between or if it becomes a pain in the @rse!

One good thing in my opinion is that it allows walking around without constantly plugging in. If you are using PC headsets you can get an adapter cable that brings the two ends together into one so that this can be plugged into a smartphone if the usual smartphone ear buds/microphone are not available. The other possible thing you could do would be to utilise a bluetooth earpiece (with microphone) that is paired with the smartphone in question. Thus no cable dangling around your person, just pure wireless connectivity.

So I think I will leave this for now and maybe test at the next running session at Mr Mackie's to see if it is a valid solution or not.

The other things I actually did on the weekend were I ran the VR Walker railmotor on the club layout and it went very smoothly. I also started to do some work on the Bray MPD side of the layout as this has not started apart from the track being laid. I have yet to finish the Kensington Hill side of the layout but I need a change for the moment.

I haven't got anywhere near the 73 Class!

Well hopefully that has filled in the gap since the last post?