Review: Wi-fi Talkie

Even with all of the capabilities cell phone have today, there are times when being able to talk quickly with people without having to initiate a full blown phone call would be nice. Remember as a kid using walkie-talkies to talk to friends that were close by? There was no need to have a full conversation but just short bits of information. The Wi-fi Talkie app by Remaller is an app that promises to bring walkie-talkie style communication back to your Android phone.

Incoming call

As a kid I played war games in the woods with my friends all of the time. We would often use walkie-talkies to communicate with each other. The beauty of it was you just pushed the button and talked, simple but effective. As I got older the days of the Nextel push to talk technology took communicating this way much further by opening up the range to include people worldwide. The best part of it was that you would just convey a message without all of the peasantries of a formal phone call. It was quick and easy. That is essentially the thing that makes this type of communication work so well.

Wi-Fi Talkie starts up with a clean interface. You have two tabs and a settings button. The app uses long presses to show options available to people you are trying to communicate with. In addition to calling other phones connected to the same wifi you can also send files and chat. One unique feature is the included Wi-Fi Hotspot option. Since with Wi-Fi Talkie you can only communicate with other phones attached to the same wifi network, the app has the option of turning on the Android hotspot on your phone to create your own network. It allows you to turn it on in two clicks. Once it is on others can connect to your hotspot and they will show up in your users list. To call one of the other phones, long press the name and select call from the menu. It would be nice to have a faster way to call to make it more walkie-talkie like. The long press and select makes it more like a phone than a push to talk or walkie-talkie device.

Wi-fi Talkie Preferences

By long pressing you can also chat or send files. I really believe the file transfer part of the app to be the most useful. Here you can send files of any size between phones. Since this app requires a fairly close proximity to one another I can see a real use for this. I was able to send a MP3 file from one phone to the other very quickly. It works device to device so there are no servers in between to manage the transfers. The chat feature works like you would expect. Between users message are sent and received within the app. It looks similar to the text messaging app in Android.

The app works better than other similar type apps that I have tried. It works without any sign in or setup. All of the features are there that you would expect. However, the biggest shortfall I see with Wi-fi Talkie is that you have to be on the same network. This limits who you can talk to. The app does work across a VPN connection to extend its reach but this will not help you to save minutes talking to people that are far away on other unconnected networks. I have tried to find uses for this app and I would think for people on a campus wide wifi network who want to be able to talk and chat without using their cell minutes and data that the app would work great. I could see communication between people working that cannot leave a location or that have limited cell reception using this also. The developer mentioned it being

Wi-fi Talkie Chat

used by people with motorcycles traveling together. One could start a hotspot and the others could all connect in. Using helmet hands free devices they could talk hands free while driving. I could see this being helpful on long trips.

If there was an option to sign into a central server and use it on a wider scale that would make the $1.99 price for the Pro version an easy purchase. As it is, I can only see this being a niche product. The Lite version has many limitations and is best used to try the app before making the purchase. I would like there to be a Lite version that would allow users to talk without limits but add the file transfer and chat features in when the full version is purchased. Even an ad supported Lite version would be useful.

If you are looking for a way to talk to others without using your cell minutes or data, Wi-fi Talkie is a working solution. It delivers all it promises and shows signs of a greater potential.

[app]com.remaller.android.wifitalkie[/app]