NETWORKING AT EVENTS SHORT CASE STUDY
Why a circle, not a network.
SpaceNet connects people who are at the same event at the same moment. The first plan was for the connection to run over shared Wi-Fi networks, and our consulting turned it onto GPS. How that decision came about is drawn out below: why a hundred-metre circle does what a network cannot, even when several networks are joined into one.
SpaceNet The first plan was a shared Wi-Fi.
People spend a day at a conference in the same hall and leave without a word between them, because nobody stands up to ask who does what. Amer knew exactly what he wanted: an app that asks the question for them, and asks it only of the people who are actually there.
The connection was going to run on Wi-Fi: join the same network and you see who else is on it, and where one network could not cover everything, Amer wanted several joined into one. Wi-Fi is a fair plan, but we kept coming back to the same question: what about someone on 4G? Some people will not join a stranger's network, and in places the Wi-Fi is simply too weak while mobile data works fine.
So we proposed a geospatial approach instead: the connection would run on GPS, which depends on no network at all and draws the boundary of a venue more precisely. It was an important decision, because a lot of what was built afterwards leaned on it.
Wi-Fi describes a router, and this had to describe a room.
The same hall, two ways of seeing who is in it. Everything the product can do sits in the difference between them. Even when several access points are joined into one network, the list still follows the equipment, not the hall. The four rules under the figure went on to become rules of the product itself.
- in the hall and on the network
- in the hall, but not on the network
- on the network, but not in the hall
- 01 A network is not a room
A Wi-Fi boundary is drawn by the router: it is invisible, it bends around walls and equipment, and nobody knows exactly who it caught. A hundred-metre circle is the same for everyone, its edge is known in advance, and it never misses anyone who is actually there.
- 02 Half the hall is on its own data
Part of the hall is on a mobile network, on 4G, 5G or 3G: they have no reason to hunt for a Wi-Fi password, and in places the Wi-Fi is simply too weak while mobile data works fine. To an app tied to the network those people do not exist. With GPS the network does not matter: you enter the circle by entering the app, on whatever connection you have, and whoever is not in the app is not in the circle either.
- 03 A venue gets a circle of its own
With GPS every venue picks its own reach, so a stadium is discoverable from five hundred metres and a small office from twenty. With Wi-Fi the router sets the reach, and it cannot be tuned per venue.
- 04 The maths stays on the server
Who is inside the circle is worked out by the database, so no phone ever receives anyone else’s coordinates. People appear as faces, never as pins on a map.
The circle has a height
A hundred metres reaches the floor above too, and height is exactly what GPS measures worst. Height is read by the barometer, a sensor the phone already carries: pressure falls with altitude, and the weather is the same for everyone in the same circle, so a difference in pressure can only come from height. A floor is about three metres, plenty for the levels to separate. GPS says who is in the circle, the barometer says who is on your level, and again with no network and nobody's equipment in the building.
And what did the decision become?
Screens from all three apps, feature by feature, and how it was all delivered: the whole story stands on the project page.
Open the full caseSpaceNet
SpaceNet - Visitors see who is in the circle
- Companies register a venue and its reach
- Administrator approves the venues
Building something similar?
The decision that shaped this product was made before any code was written. Questions like that are where we start every project.
