Comment by trango | Hacker News Reader

Comment by trango | Hacker News Reader

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I created https://web.trango.io a LAN based calling and file sharing service. Essentially, you can share files, make video and audio calls to those on the same network as you without having to go through the internet. Your data never leaves your local Wifi. The internet is only used to discover those on the same network as you. We use webrtc and a signalling server to make this system work.

We were in the same office and needed a fast, simple way to communicate with eachother without coming in close contact (covid 19) and wanted to do that over LAN rather than use tools over the internet NOR use our ancient intercom system. So now we are using this internally for fast file sharing and good quality video calls.

Going to be introducing group calls soon and also the ability to integrate online calling and file sharing.

This is a really great idea from the security and privacy point for small teams and offices. And for sharing stuff in a house! Would this work through a VPN?

you could also introduce differnt channels, so different groups of ppl can chat . And you should add text chat through the data channel

Thank you!

It works over some VPN's but not all. We will look into why and try to resolve.

Yes, it works very well when we need to call eachother or share files with eachother in the office. At home, I mainly use it to share large pictures and videos with my wife as it is very fast.

Yes, different channels and group calling should be added. We could add a chat function in it aswell.

Even though it is based on your local wifi and the data never leaves your home/office network, we have still encrypted it by default so we can integrate online calling and file sharing in a secure manner and dont have to redo the whole security aspect again!

So cool! Mind sharing what tech you used to build this?

Sure. We used webrtc, websockets and a signalling server which helps in discovering who is available on your local network. However, none of the calls or files ever go through the server.

We want to refine it a bit further before taking it opensource. :)

kudos for keeping this super simple!

thank you! Inspired by Apple's Airdrop graphics and interface.

It works wonderfully

What is the max range ?

There is no range. Whoever is connected to the same Wifi network can communicate or share files. You could say the range is only as good as the signals from your router.

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