trails/docs/ideas/mobile-nearby-sync/README.md
Ullrich Schäfer 621d91e14f
Park mobile-activity-recording + mobile-nearby-sync under docs/ideas
Both are blocked on the mobile-app foundation and on a user base that
actually records activities or needs offline peer sync. With 3 users
and 0 activities on prod today, these are engineering for a
hypothetical population.

Move the artifact sets out of openspec/changes/ (so openspec list
stays clean) and under docs/ideas/ where self-host-overpass already
lives. Each gets a short README documenting:

- current parked status
- revive triggers (when should we look at this again?)
- key constraints not to rediscover (background-GPS privacy review;
  BLE dev-build requirement; QR-only subset as a cheaper path)

Reviving is `git mv docs/ideas/<name> openspec/changes/<name>` and
running /opsx:apply, same pattern as self-host-overpass.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-04-19 08:23:44 +02:00

43 lines
1.8 KiB
Markdown

# mobile-nearby-sync (parked)
OpenSpec change for sharing routes between nearby devices without internet
(BLE-based peer sync + QR-code waypoint fallback) in the mobile app.
Moved here from `openspec/changes/` so it does not clutter the active
change list; revive by moving the directory back under
`openspec/changes/` when ready to implement.
## Status
**Parked.** Blocked on `mobile-app` landing first, and on there being
enough users actually hiking/bikepacking together to justify the BLE
complexity. At the current user count (3) this is engineering for a
hypothetical group trip.
## When to revive
Revisit once **any** of these is true:
- The mobile app is live and users start reporting "we were in a dead zone
and couldn't update the route"
- A group / tour organiser asks specifically for peer-to-peer route sync
- QR-code waypoint sharing alone (the simpler half of this spec) would
cover the need — worth shipping that first as a narrower change
## Key constraints to remember
- **Requires an Expo dev build** — `react-native-ble-plx` isn't available
in Expo Go.
- **iOS + Android BLE APIs differ significantly**; expect platform-specific
bugs. Background BLE advertising has battery and OS-lifecycle caveats
(iOS suspends advertising when backgrounded after a grace period).
- **Permissions sprawl**: iOS `NSBluetoothAlwaysUsageDescription`, Android
`BLUETOOTH_SCAN` + `BLUETOOTH_CONNECT` + `BLUETOOTH_ADVERTISE`, plus
location on older Android.
- **QR waypoint sharing is an order of magnitude simpler** than BLE and
covers a big chunk of the use case — consider extracting that as a
separate, earlier change if the need becomes real.
## What's in the folder
- `proposal.md` — why / what / non-goals / impact / future ideas (TXQR)
- `specs/` — delta specs (would land against a new `mobile-nearby-sync` capability)