Air Waves (Lite)

♪ What does it do?

Air Waves is a "one to many" local radio broadcasting service which could be used for many things such as live translations for an audience, a baby monitor or a 2-way intercom/walkie-talkie.

Prior to creating this app, we had looked into alternatives. The translation system we needed for Ecclesia Mission Hills church (translation service) was almost $8,000. That included only a transmitting station, microphones and 4 headset devices.

With Air Waves, we paid (in $AUD):
• wireless N150 router ($60)
• $120 for x2 cheap Android phones to test our setup with
• $20 for x2 in-ear Sony headphones
• $0 to bring your own additional listening device

So for $200 we've provided the same service which an $8,000 system would have, except Air Waves is easier to set up and far cheaper if we need more headsets.


♪ How to use it?
It doesn't get much simpler than this!

• Broadcaster: Click on the microphone to start broadcasting immediately.
• Listener: Simply click on the headphone icon and choose the channel (or language) you want.

Note: all devices need to be on the same WiFi network.


♪ Advanced usage
• Press menu to set your device name
• Press menu to enable/disable audio playback via headset (for speaker)


♪ Hardware required
• At least 2 Android 4.1+ devices
• A router with wireless capabilities (preferably at least N standard)
• (optional) Some headphones and/or microphone for better audio quality


♪ Notes
I've only tested on a handful of phones, simply because I can't afford to buy every phone in the market.

Below are the phones I've personally tested and works with Air Waves:
• HTC Droid Incredible 2
• HTC One X
• Nexus 4
• Samsung i9000 / S2 / S3 / Note 2 / S 3 Mini / S4
• Sony Xperia X10 mini / Z1 / Z3 / Z5
• Xiaomi Mi 2S
• ZTE T12 / Telstra Uno


♪ Some additional advice
• Lite version can only broadcast for 2mins. You can get the full version here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=twig.nguyen.airwaves.pro

• Both broadcaster and audience must be on the SAME wireless network.
• Each listener will use approximately 20Kbps, so please ensure your broadcasting device can handle the given number of listeners. See below for a detailed breakdown.
• There is noticeably less audio latency on Android +4.1 devices as Google has fixed up some audio processing issues and again in Android 6
• If you use a hands free microphone, the microphone used will affect recording quality. (Garbage in = garbage out)
• Each broadcasting device has different methods of noise cancellation. Pick the one which works best for you.


♪ Some features on wishlist
• automatically reconnect to server
• use non-blocking IO


♪ Contact
If you have any problems, EMAIL ME!

Feel free to try it out and email me your feedback. Don't use reviews/comments as a form of "bug reports".

Recent changes:
v1.5.1:
- added ability to run app in portrait mode


v1.50: (now has minimum of Android 4.1)
- massve code cleanup. hasn't been touched since 2013
- added toolbar so newer Android versions can modify settings
- added notification which prevents app from sleeping on newer devices
- prevent WiFi from being disabled by power saving
- enabled noise cancellation for 4.3+ (Jellybean) devices
- fixed threading issues
- improved performance
- cleaned up icons and menus