CampChat lets nearby phones talk to each other without internet, cell service, or a single server. Open the app, pick a nickname, and start a fire — messages hop phone-to-phone until everyone has them.
You light it when you sit down. People nearby join. When you walk away, it keeps burning for the rest of the group. It's group chat for the moments when there's no network — just people, near each other.
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi only. Works in the air, in the woods, in a basement, anywhere two phones can see each other.
Type a nickname, you're in. No phone numbers, no email, no sign-up flow. No friend lists to manage.
Messages exist on the phones that send and receive them. Nothing leaves the group. Nothing ever touches our infrastructure.
Every phone passes messages along for the rest of the group. The "fire" you start with three friends can grow to twenty, hopping device to device.
CampChat handles discovery, relaying, and reconnection for you. The background service keeps the mesh alive even after the phone reboots.
One-time setup. Pick a name you'll go by in the chat. That's the whole onboarding.
Your phone listens for other CampChat phones in range. Joined fires show on top, new ones appear under "Fires nearby".
Send messages over the mesh. Every phone in the group helps carry them, so you can reach people just out of direct range.
Two phones in direct range talk. A third phone, just outside that range, still gets the message — because one of the first two relays it. Add more phones, and the fire grows wider than any single radio could reach.
That's the whole trick. No master device, no leader. Every participant is a router.
Bluetooth-only chat with the people in your row, or the friends three rows back. Coordinate without paying for airline Wi-Fi.
A group spread across a campsite keeping in touch. No bars, no problem — your phones can still hear each other.
When the cell network is buckling under 50,000 phones, friends a few hundred meters apart can still find each other through the mesh.
Field work, expeditions, blackouts. CampChat keeps a group connected as long as everyone's within a few hops of each other.
The whole app runs on phones in the same room. That means a lot of nice things — and one important thing you should know before sending anything sensitive.
CampChat doesn't talk to our infrastructure because we don't have any. Your messages, nickname, and room history live on the participating phones and nowhere else.
There's no analytics SDK. No crash reporter that phones home. No advertising ID. Uninstall removes everything.
CampChat's mesh transmits messages in the clear over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Anyone in radio range running suitable equipment could passively observe your nickname, the rooms you're in, and the content of every message.
Treat a CampChat fire like a conversation across a campsite: useful, convenient, but assume people nearby could overhear. Don't send anything you wouldn't say out loud in a crowd.
A few of the screens you'll meet. The whole app lives in a warm world of linen, ember, and twilight blue — built to feel like sitting around the fire, not staring at a corporate dashboard.
The home screen. "Your fires" up top, "Fires nearby" waiting underneath.
Messages, delivery state, who's actually in this fire vs. just on the mesh.
Your nickname, the radios in use, and the state of every link on the phone.
Host a small server from your phone. Friends without the app join from a browser by QR.
Direct Bluetooth range is roughly 10 meters in a crowded environment, more in open air (even 200+ meters during some of our tests, but don't count on that!). On phones with Google Play Services, CampChat also links over Wi-Fi (via Google's Nearby Connections), which carries more and reaches further. The mesh effectively multiplies this: every additional phone in the middle becomes a relay, so a group spread across a campsite or a few rows of an airplane all stays connected even when the endpoints are far apart.
No. CampChat doesn't use the internet, cellular, or any Wi-Fi network you'd join — there's no router or hotspot in the middle. Phones link directly to each other over Bluetooth and, where Google Play Services is available, over Wi-Fi via Google's Nearby Connections. The one exception is the optional web-access feature, where you can host a local hotspot so browser-only guests can join.
Be aware: CampChat does not encrypt messages in transit. Anyone in Bluetooth or Wi-Fi range with the right equipment could passively observe nicknames, room names, and message content. Assume anything you send can be read by someone nearby.
On the other hand, we collect nothing and there are no servers to compromise — your data never leaves the participating devices. See the privacy policy for the full breakdown.
CampChat runs as a foreground service so Android keeps it alive when the screen is off. Bluetooth (Classic and LE) is fairly light; the Wi-Fi link adds range but draws more. If you'd rather stay on Bluetooth only, turn your phone's Wi-Fi off and the mesh keeps going over Bluetooth alone. To stop the mesh entirely, pause it from the identity screen or tap Stop on the foreground-service notification.
You can host a "web access" session from your phone: CampChat starts a small local server, you turn on your phone hotspot, and other people connect through a browser by scanning a QR code. They see a lightweight version of the chat and show up in the room labelled with their host's device name.
Free. No ads, no in-app purchases, no premium tier. It's a small, opinionated app for an unusual situation. There is no business model that needs your data, because there is no business model.
CampChat is in open beta for Android 8.0 and up. Free — join the beta program to get it on Google Play.