Here's my analysis of ring. Note I want it to replace Skype for person to person calls. Not that I currently use Skype, but something like it would be useful to talk with people overseas.
Ring works. It uses SIP/RTP directly from device to device, without an intervening server. This means there will be problems with NAT and you need to use STUN/TURN servers to deal with those. STUN/TURN servers are manually configured in the application. This is one disadvantage (Manual configuration, plus I perceive SIP/RTP/STUN/TURN to be fragile; prone to long periods of silence) Maybe this problem would go away with IPv6? Ring IDs are used instead of phone numbers. They are long crypto hashes that can't be processed by humans like phone numbers. That's fine by me. However, while I can add ring: urls in my android phonebook, I can't call the person by clicking on that. The main dialler app doesn't recognise ring: urls. I have to open the ring app first, and select from there. I.e. the app doesn't seem to integrate well on android IMO. (Android 4.4.2/CyanogenMod 11) The strength of ring is using DHT (like bittorrent) to achieve presence without any central server. It is a peer to peer network to track who is online and what their IP address is. This is also a weakness as it is currently implemented, if you install this on your cellphone. Since you're always participating in this PTP network, your device is always transmitting and battery life is poor when the software is installed. Because of this, I removed ring from my Android. It is still installed on my desktop, constantly using about 1-2% CPU (and not sure how much data). Despite the other disadvantages, I would use it if the battery problem was solved. To fix that, I suggest people should be able to group together multiple devices. so you would install it on your phone and desktop or VPS. Then your phone would check in with your other systems only when it changed IP address, and they would participate in the PTP network. But I really like the concept overall. When I want to sign up to a calling tool, I don't want to sign up to a Skype like service provided by a company, I want to sign up to a PTP network with no central service provider or gateway. Cheers, Alex On 26/03/16 05:32, Strypey of Aotearoa wrote: > Kia ora koutou > > On 2016-03-16 21:10, Alex King wrote: >> 3. It has to be easy to use. I want to install it on my phone easily >> and set up some contacts quickly. I want make calls from my contacts >> with no more than 2 clicks/touches. The calls have to work and have >> decent call quality. And most importantly: >> So I thought I should look for something in F-Droid instead. I found >> "ring" (https://ring.cx/), and installed that. I like what I see, it >> does well at 1 & 2, and seems to have wide device support so should do >> 4, but I suspect it fails at 3, like most of these types of apps. > Any updates? Does it fail on 3? > > Ma te wā > Strypey > _______________________________________________ Ring mailing list Ring@lists.savoirfairelinux.net https://lists.savoirfairelinux.net/mailman/listinfo/ring
