Camp Fire

Consumer and social

location-based chat

SHOW HN2020

151points
75comments
#398of 3,028 in 2020
Top 14%of 2020 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

8 positive, 15 neutral or asking, 2 mixed, 19 critical, out of 44 comments about the project. Thread score -0.23.

Execution: 1 for, 14 againstIdea: 3 for, 0 againstPrivacy: 1 for, 2 againstPerformance: 1 for, 2 againstDesign: 1 for, 1 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Neat, fun idea that reminds people of similar apps

    From 3 comments
    • Neat idea. Little bit of feedback: would be good if you could get the interface working nicely on mobile. It’s very cumbersome at the moment.
      orobinson on HN
    • Looks neat! I like that you show how many are in range. Here's some suggestions, take them for what they are worth. - Fix the layout on iOS Safari. - Show the location of all…
      state_less on HN
    • This is fun. In europe we have jodel which has a big userbase. The quality of discussion varies from location and it's fun to listen in what the locals are talking about.
      patrickvmm on HN
  • Would like a polished native mobile version

    From 1 comment
    • I understand that it's a work in progress, but I could see a polished, native mobile version of this really taking off. I'd be excited to try it, at least.
      _bxg1 on HN

Objections

  • Layout is cumbersome on mobile and iOS Safari

    From 3 comments
    • Neat idea. Little bit of feedback: would be good if you could get the interface working nicely on mobile. It’s very cumbersome at the moment.
      orobinson on HN
    • Looks neat! I like that you show how many are in range. Here's some suggestions, take them for what they are worth. - Fix the layout on iOS Safari. - Show the location of all…
      state_less on HN
    • On iPhone Safari (cellular data) I get Error when getting location - 1 user denied) Even when I set the website permnissions for location to 'Allow'
      Angostura on HN
  • Geolocation errors for many users

    From 3 comments
    • I get: ``` Error when getting location: 1 User denied geolocation prompt ``` even though I allowed location access. Firefox 72.0.2 on macOS Mojave 10.14.6
      PawelDecowski on HN
    • I also got a geolocation error even though I allowed location access. Could benefit from allowing the user to set a location as a fallback (or override). FF 72 (Ubuntu)
      andreareina on HN
    • On iPhone Safari (cellular data) I get Error when getting location - 1 user denied) Even when I set the website permnissions for location to 'Allow'
      Angostura on HN
  • Spam messages and no throttling

    From 2 comments
  • Privacy risk of stalkers locating users

    From 1 comment
    • Location based chatting is a privacy nightmare. How do you protect against stalkers using this tool for triangulating the actual physical location of someone? If the GPS…
      draugadrotten on HN
  • Username input allows script injection and layout breaks

    From 2 comments
    • There are 4 people chatting with the word "ignition" over their messages but my range selector (presently "campfire") says "1 in range". Also, my preferred username, <span…
      CGamesPlay on HN
    • username: <script type="text/javascript">alert('oh oh')</script> Oh boy... How long till someone loads a cryptominer on everyone's machine? Also, for kicks:…
      mcjiggerlog on HN

Requests

  • Fix mobile interface

    From 2 comments
    • Neat idea. Little bit of feedback: would be good if you could get the interface working nicely on mobile. It’s very cumbersome at the moment.
      orobinson on HN
    • Looks neat! I like that you show how many are in range. Here's some suggestions, take them for what they are worth. - Fix the layout on iOS Safari. - Show the location of all…
      state_less on HN
  • Manual location or country/city fallback

    From 2 comments
    • I also got a geolocation error even though I allowed location access. Could benefit from allowing the user to set a location as a fallback (or override). FF 72 (Ubuntu)
      andreareina on HN
    • But first make the location by IP so you don't have to turn on browser geo-location.
      bullen on HN
  • Throttling for spam

    From 1 comment
  • Unique user ID to prevent impersonation

    From 1 comment
    • It's very easy to impersonate another user right now by just using the same name. It would be great if the first 5 chars of a hashed IP fingerprint (or something similar) could…
      splittydev on HN

Questions

  • How the range and distances work

    From 2 comments
    • This is a really cool idea, and I like it so far!! -- would you mind sharing what the different ranges are for each type? I see people chatting, but not sure how close they are…
      californical on HN
    • How does it work when you would be alone in a given range? Because I almost certainly am at "Bonfire" range (there are maybe a few hundred people within 10km of me), yet I am…
      mod on HN
  • How to handle users seeing only partial conversations

    From 1 comment
    • This is cool! I had been thinking about creating something similar but I couldn't solve this problem: Given a radius of 5 miles and three users in a geographic straight line,…
      every_other on HN

Alternatives named

  • Yik Yak

    From 1 comment
  • Firechat

    From 1 comment
    • For a second I got this confused with Firechat (but I guess that's a different setup since proximity is required for direct p2p relay, not just to find people to chat with).…
      soylentcola on HN
  • Jodel

    From 1 comment
    • This is fun. In europe we have jodel which has a big userbase. The quality of discussion varies from location and it's fun to listen in what the locals are talking about.
      patrickvmm on HN
  • Basecamp Campfire

    From 1 comment
    • Wasn't Camp Fire the name of a 37 Signals chat product they later merged into bootcamp? Rings a bell
      easytiger on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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