I am really pleased to observe Google’s efforts to make Android more distinguishable from eOS and other privacy focused mobile operating systems. It seems, for Android 15 Google is planning to create additional barriers to users that a usage of devices without Bluetooth becomes more difficult.
Yeah, it’s really ridiculous that you can’t just easily shut off Bluetooth and WiFi any more on new proprietary phone OSes.
But Apple’s “Find my” network doesn’t even reach the potential of what would be possible with mesh networking.
I think this is actually a space with huge potentioal for a free and open source solution.
An open mesh network could be amazing in locations with natural disasters, war zones, large-scale emergencies, areas with bad internet access or outages or where governments try to shut off the internet to censor it or to avoid proof of human rights violations getting out to the internet in real time.
Especially in bigger cities with high densities of phones and WiFi routers, it could even become an alternative to regular cable and fibre based internet access. Add Tor-type anonymization, and you’d have a privacy friendly network that couldn’t be surveilled or shut down. And unlike traditional internet access, it would get faster the more devices join it.