Exploring aiTalk as a Non-LoRa Long-Range Transport for Columba

[niuzhongjin]

Hi Torlando and the Columba community,

My name is Alan Niu from TaoLink, a wireless communications semiconductor company in China.

We share Columba’s vision of private and resilient communication without cellular networks, internet access, accounts, or centralized infrastructure.

We noticed the discussions about supporting external radio hardware in #224, as well as the exploration of new BLE interfaces in #880.

We have developed aiTalk, a mature and commercially available Sub-GHz communication device that connects to iOS and Android phones through BLE.

aiTalk already provides:

• Offline messaging and location sharing
• Kilometer-scale direct communication
• Low-cost relays with an approximately 50-kilometer coverage radius per hop under suitable conditions
• Multi-hop networking across hundreds or potentially thousands of kilometers
• Low-latency PTT voice at 0.325 kbps
• Real-time full-duplex voice at 1.2 kbps and 2.4 kbps

The hardware, firmware, iOS and Android apps, SDKs, reference designs, and mass-production support are already available. The technology has also been validated through mobile phone OEM projects.

aiTalk uses BLE between the phone and the device, while long-range communication uses TaoLink’s proprietary Sub-GHz technology. It is not based on LoRa, RNode, Meshtastic, or the Bluetooth Mesh standard.

We understand that Columba is built on Reticulum, LXMF, and LXST, so we are not assuming immediate compatibility. However, we would be interested in jointly evaluating whether aiTalk could be integrated either as a new Reticulum interface or through a compact application-layer integration optimized for low-bandwidth messaging, location, PTT, and voice.

A small text-messaging proof of concept could be a practical first step before evaluating additional capabilities.

TaoLink can provide well-documented iOS and Android SDKs, a clearly defined integration interface, engineering support, and development of the required adapter. The underlying radio implementation, communication silicon, and voice codecs will remain proprietary.

Mature aiTalk products are available for purchase and technical evaluation.

Would the Columba maintainers be interested in an initial feasibility discussion?

Best regards,
Alan Niu
TaoLink / aiTalk
Email: alan.niu@taolink-tech.com
WeChat: niuzhongjin