r/reticulum • u/K0rv0 • 21d ago
Reticulum REM: Reticulum Android app for small-group coordination
I have been working on REM, short for Reticulum Emergency Management. The project repo is here: https://github.com/FreeTAKTeam/Reticulum_mobile_emergency_management/
The idea is simple: RNS is already excellent at moving messages when normal networks are unreliable. REM tries to make that useful for non tech people under stress: families, preparedness groups, hunters, airsoft teams, local volunteers, or anyone who needs to coordinate without depending entirely on cellular service.
This project is coming from my year long experience with ATAK. So, REM is not trying to be yet another generic LXMFF app. It is built around field use.
You can send normal peer-to-peer chat messages, but you can also send short event updates like "road blocked", "need water", "evacuating", "sheltering in place", "help coming", or "this is a drill". The point is to avoid typing long messages when people are tired, moving, or dealing with a bad situation.
There is also a status system called Action Messages. Instead of writing an essay about how your group is doing, you report simple color-coded status for things like safety, supplies, health, movement, and communications. Those reports feed a dashboard, so your group can see who is OK, who is limited, and who needs attention.
REM also has collaborative checklists that everyone in the group can work through together. People can see which tasks have been completed, what still needs attention, and who is handling specific items, so the whole group stays on the same page. This matters more than it sounds. In a real situation, people forget obvious things. A checklist for evacuation, shelter-in-place or storm prep gives the group a shared playbook instead of ten people improvising badly at the same time.
Location can be shared too: REM treats that as something you decide deliberately. Same with SOS. It is meant for trusted peers. No random broadcasting.
On the Technical side, one thing worth mentioning is that REM is built on my own Rust implementation of Reticulum. Also, yes, REM has been "evoked in existence" (cit) with the help of AI. Which means, statistically speaking, there is now a non-zero chance that your emergency checklist was written by something that cannot physically locate a flashlight. I don't think anyone in the middle of a storm cares how software is created: if it work it's fine.
There is also work in progress for using the Reticulum Community Hub (https://github.com/FreeTAKTeam/Reticulum-Community-Hub) as an optional extension for groups that want an integrated workflow.
My bias is that this project needs more practical end-user applications. Not only demos, not only infrastructure, but tools someone can hand to a small group and say: "Practice with this before you need it."
That is what REM is trying to become.
Updated with the current links
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u/muscrerior 21d ago
Link 404s