Communicate Freely with FireChat

Communicating is one challenge all international travelers must face while on the road, especially when it involves meeting up with other travelers or informing your loved ones of your safe arrival. One of the travel industry’s newest apps solves this problem by allowing travelers to use their smartphones to communicate without needing a wireless Internet connection or data plan.

Conceptually, FireChat is ideal as most travelers neglect to organize a communication plan before their journey, or they rely on sporadic WiFi connections throughout their trip. However, the method of action behind FireChat isn’t as speedy or easy to use as a typical data plan at home. For example, the receiver of the message must also have the FireChat application downloaded on their phone for the transmission to be successful.

The message is sent via mesh networking, meaning the message feeds off your phone’s WiFi or bluetooth network and is connected to another FireChat-equipped device nearby, until the message has been carried to the correct receiver. The transmission process can take anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes, so if urgency is not an issue for your message, FireChat may be a reasonable option.

While still in the phase of recruiting users to increase the app’s efficiency FireChat may become an incredibly helpful messaging mechanism once enough users have signed on.