So far, there has been very little info about Ripple Tactical, so I thought it's about time I wrote up some proper guides on the app and the various components it can employ.
Overview
Tactical's focus is on team situational awareness, and has the map view as its primary UI. Incoming messages appear as bubbles at the bottom of the screen, and can be dismissed or replied to:
One of the main differences introduced with Tactical is team-wide broadcasts. As you move around, this is how your location is shared with the team, but you can also send team-wide text messages, unlike in Ripple Messenger.
Tactical also lets you share map annotations with your team! You can drop points, circles and polygons onto the map and give it a custom colour, and (after a short delay) it will appear on the maps of the entire team. (the coloured circles in the screenshot above are an example) Each team member can, however, opt in or out of seeing your map annotations. In the team screen (below) you just toggle the 'eye' icon:
Handsfree Mode
If you plug in a wired headset, the app goes into handsfree mode, and uses Android's text-to-speech and reads out incoming messages to you! Conversely, using a special PTT (push-to-talk) button on the Tactical pager radio, you can speak messages and after releasing the PTT button, it is transcribed and sent over the Ripple mesh. (these can be broadcast messages, or direct to particular team member).
There are also some special 'Hey Ripple' commands you can speak:
Hey Ripple, replay|repeat - re-speak the last message received
Hey Ripple, where is 'x' - locate other user 'x' (distance and bearing from you is read out)
Hey Ripple, send to all|everyone - set mode to broadcast
Hey Ripple, send to 'x' - send following messages only to user 'x'
Preferences
Under the toolbar menu, are these menu options:
The 'Transmit Options' lets you control how often your location is broadcast to the team. This has 'High, Medium, Low' options, and triggers transmit if you move by a certain distance:
High: at least 5 meters, at least 4 seconds interval.
Medium: at least 10 meters, at least 16 seconds interval.
Low: at least 20 meters, at least 32 seconds interval.
The 'send periodic heartbeat' option will make the Ripple radio send status data even if there has been no movement, and even if the radio has lost Bluetooth connection with the Android handset. The period is 3 times the interval selected in the High/Medium/Low sensitivity option. So, for Medium, the heartbeat is sent every 48 seconds (3 x 16).
Other team members can see if your location is 'old', ie. if only heartbeat data is being received, by the map pin turning to gray. It turns back to your usual colour once your Android reconnects.
Adding Team Members
You can either do this OTA, using the 'Exchange Keys' menu, which works the same as in Ripple Messenger, or you can go into the Team screen, then tap on the '+' toolbar icon to scan their QR code. As with other Ripple apps/devices, the key exchange needs to be two-way, ie. A imports B's key, B imports A's key.
The Tactical team can be made up of these any of these devices:
other Tactical pagers
Ripple 'Ultra' standalone devices (T-Deck, T-Display, and any of the Ripple Touch pagers)
GPS tracker devices (with 'broadcast to team' config enabled)
Also, they're not added to the 'team', but you can also use dedicated repeater nodes, or the slim BLE pagers as repeaters, eg. strapped to a drone or helium balloon.
New Pager Device Setup
Setting up the app and the pager involves a Bluetooth pairing (or bonding with the BLE pagers), then assigning an ID, name and radio/mesh params. All the devices in your team must use the same frequency and spreading factor, and you need to allocate unique numeric IDs to each member (in range 2.. 250).
There are now two types of pager device: Bluetooth (classic) and Bluetooth LE. In the opening setup screen, select the appropriate button at the bottom.
NOTE: for Bluetooth classic, you need to first go into Android system 'Connected Devices' screen, and pair the pager device. (BLE doesn't require this)
The setup UI flow is:
The new device firmwares now require an Activation Code, which you can purchase here.
The Pager Devices
I will do a separate post on the details of the pager devices and firmware. For now, this post is more for an overview of what Tactical does.
The pager devices are a little different to the pagers used with Ripple Messenger and Commander. They have a screen, and an extra PTT button, and have some extra capabilities like 'detached mode', where you can long-press the button to sever the Bluetooth connection. The Tactical pager can then operate independently, and incoming messages can be previewed on the OLED screen.
There is also a 'Tactical Pro' firmware, for pager hardware that includes a GPS module, where the 'detached mode' then uses the on-board GPS for continuing to share your location with the team.
The firmware can run on this hardware:
Heltec V2. (Bluetooth classic)
Heltec V3. (BLE)
Heltec Wireless Tracker ('Pro' variant firmware)