#HTE

2016 IDEA Award Faves: The goTenna Lets Two Smartphone Users Communicate With Each Other Off-Grid

Imagine you and a friend are going hiking in the woods, or to a crowded music festival, or visiting a city overseas. Eventually you might split up for a spell, and it would be handy to be able to stay in touch. But at Bear Mountain there are no towers; at Coachella the towers are there but overloaded; and in Prague, you’ll pay for international roaming.

Enter the goTenna, a handy piece of technology that allows two users to essentially carry around their own cell towers. 

While you can’t make voice calls, you can text each other and send GPS coordinates (and precise map locations via goTenna’s maps) within a one-mile range in cities, and roughly a four-mile range out in the country. There are no carrier fees to pay because goTenna sends the data via VHF radio waves.

If you’re a regular Core77 reader, you’ve seen goTenna covered here before: We took a closer look at the development in our In the Details section, and we gave it a nod in our Core77 Design Awards Consumer Product category. Now the goTenna’s racking up more glory as a finalist in the 2016 IDEA Awards in the Communication category.

Congratulations to Mark Prommel, IDSA, Marco Perry, IDSA, Peter Chung, Lisa Yanz Lehman, IDSA and Chad Ingerick of Pensa; and Daniela Perdomo and Jorge Perdomo of goTenna.