Response that works when the grid fails
When infrastructure fails, response teams and affected communities still need to message, verify who they are dealing with, and record what happened. The mesh runs on the phones already in the field, and one connected device syncs the whole group out. UNICEF Innovation Fund finalist.
A field officer's signed report relays phone to phone across a blackout zone with no towers and no power, reaching the one connected crew device that syncs it to the command dashboard at HQ.
A signed assessment travels phone to phone across the blackout zone until it reaches the one device with a working link.
The first thing a crisis takes is the network
Towers, power, and backhaul fail together. Teams fall back to runners and paper exactly when coordination demand peaks. Identity checks and aid entitlements depend on lookups against systems that are offline when they matter.
Coverage is a property of the crew. Phones relay encrypted messages device to device over BLE and WiFi Direct, up to 8 hops. No towers, satellites, or generators required.
A record you can trust after the fact. Observations are signed at capture, so a report that arrives days later still proves when, by whom, and on which device it was made.
What still works in a blackout
Tower-based systems and the mesh, side by side, once the grid is down.
What you can build
Each of these runs on the shipped SDK primitives.
Teams message device to device across a blackout zone with DORS, up to 8 hops, and one connected node syncs the whole group out.
A field officer confirms a colleague credential or a beneficiary entitlement face to face with OfflineID at zero connectivity.
Damage reports, photos, and forms up to 100 MB signed at capture and moved hop by hop, arriving attributable and timestamped.
Customer stories
The primitives behind it
- DORS
- Standard iOS and Android phones meshed into a relay network that carries encrypted messages across an outage. How mesh networking works.
- OfflineID
- Every worker and beneficiary carries an Ed25519 identity verified device to device, bound to accounts through the hosted directory. How offline identity works.
- Groups
- MLS group channels for response cells, authenticated per member, with admin and member roles. How groups work.
- Service discovery
- Forms, lookups, and dispatch published as request and response endpoints on the mesh. How service discovery works.
- Telemetry
- Every relay and delivery event, kept on the device and uploaded by the SDK, so the programme has a record it did not have to build. How telemetry works.
Public sector FAQ
How can teams communicate when cell towers are down?
Phone to phone. The mesh relays encrypted messages device-to-device over BLE and WiFi Direct, up to 8 hops, with no tower, satellite, or generator in the loop. Any phone running an app with the SDK becomes a node, so a response team carries its own network into the field.
What is a disaster response communication system that needs no infrastructure?
One built from the devices already on site. DORS meshes standard iOS and Android phones into a relay network, OfflineID verifies people and credentials face to face, and signed records sync out through whichever node first regains a link.
What hardware does a deployment need?
The phones already in the field. The mesh runs on standard iOS and Android devices; dedicated hardware relays can extend coverage but are optional.
How is beneficiary data protected?
All sessions are MLS (RFC 9420) encrypted, identities are Ed25519 keys that never leave the device, and telemetry is opt-in. Data stays on-device until you choose where it syncs.
Has this been used in real deployments?
The network has reached 350,000+ devices across 140+ countries, with local networks active through disasters, blackouts, and connectivity shutdowns. Offline Protocol is a UNICEF Innovation Fund finalist.
How do we evaluate it for our program?
A 4 to 16 week scoped evaluation against a defined program scenario, with success criteria agreed up front. Contact us to scope it.
What happens when connectivity returns?
Nothing to migrate. Messages, signed records, and telemetry that accumulated during the outage sync opportunistically the moment any node in the mesh reaches the internet, and operations continue on the same devices.
Can teams run group channels offline?
Yes. Group messaging runs over the same mesh inside MLS group sessions, so a response cell shares one encrypted channel with no infrastructure behind it, and members joining in the field authenticate with OfflineID before they see a message.
