Could anyone knowledgeable about radio tell me what's the pros/cons of this over something like APRS [0]? I guess for pros this wouldn't require a ham radio license and it's encrypted, but APRS is possible out of the box for certain radios?
In the pro category, though, this device is pocketable, and I don't think there are very many APRS-enabled radios that easily fit into jeans pocket (I'd love to be proven wrong). You could cobble together something -- a Baofeng UV3R+ or especially a BF-T1 easily fits into a pocket, but that's just the radio. You need an audio cable/TNC and a phone to make it an APRS setup.
So if you are going for encrypted platform might as well use a less regulated frequency range.
So you can't talk to anyone privately , everything has to through some NSA infected, zerodayed, hyper complex backdoored software/hardware?
Seems to me like the "powers that be", doesn't want anyone to be able to talk to eachother without them knowing.
You can have encrypted discussions all you want on private usage frequency allocations.
But for Self Regulation to work, all ham communications must be in the clear.
Once encryption was allowed it would take only a short time for commercial users to completely swamp the ham bands.
Amateur Frequencies can not be used for commercial use, nor can communications be encrypted. There are a wide variety of modes in use, from old fashioned Morse code through all the latest SDR driven techniques.
But has the disadvantage a bit higher barrier to entry (ham radio license required), and cannot be encrypted.
That said, the SX1276 covers both 2m and 70cm, and has FSK mode, so this project has the hardware to do APRS, though I don’t see schematics on how the RF chain is implemented.