Yeah…this Circlus thing has a particular odor to it. Knew it was too good to be true but wanted to double check, as had not heard of it before. Thanks for confirming.

I think I will fork Simple LAN Chat and add what I want: https://github.com/nathanielxd/simple-lan-chat

It’s server-less, which is one less thing to host. Text chat already works. The main problems are broken image/file transfer (literally craps itself with anything > 5kb in testing) and no useful notifications. So I will fix those, then probably add offline message queuing. The codebase is small and simple enough (he said, ominously) and if I don’t scope creep, this should do the job nicely.

My kids are really into PictoCHAT on their DSes, so I’m thinking of it as something along those lines.

I want something that only works on the local WLAN, between vetted devices, and does not rely on Google accounts, FCM or other cloud middleware. I don’t allow them unlimited access to the net / social media, so am engineering in house solutions. The base app here already keeps communication on the LAN, and I will add the device-vetting part. It looks like it’s configured down to Android 5.1, so I can install it on old junkers without SIM cards, modern tablets, etc. That way the kids can play around with it (without doing something they ought not to), take it camping (hotspot) etc. I’ll need to reroll the Android APK. Could be a fun little project…

Hey buddy this doesn’t look like a great service. It isn’t open source but claims to be, and appears to have only been around a couple of months.

A project with a lot of backing called Nextcloud could work for you. It has a service called Nextcloud Talk that you’ll be able to throw on their dumb phone and if you want to you can use it as an alternative to dropbox/onedrive and google docs.

edit: a benefit of nextcloud talk is that your kid won’t be able to add some random person or do anything too nefarious with it and if they did you’d be able to see everything

Yeah, I doubt anyone runs it, because if you follow the instructions and click on the link to the server code, it’s just missing. And the empty repository has been sitting there since May… There isn’t any Android app in the Appstore either, so you wouldn’t be able to install anything. Seems all “Circulus” is, is a shiny website with (made-up?) advertisement text.

(And by the way, if you decide to self-host some of the standard open-source messengers… You can always just disable Federation and disallow sign-up. That way XMPP or Matrix won’t be able to connect to anyone else, except the people you invited to your server. And there’s this messenger overview, it doesn’t talk about kids-features, but maybe it’s useful nonetheless: https://www.messenger-matrix.de/messenger-matrix-en.html )

I find it rather concerning that both of circlus’s GitHub repos are empty.

SimpleX and Briar are both pretty good for messengers that are only able to talk to people you know.

It says it’s opensource. Where’s the source code?

https://github.com/circlus-org

Nothing there.

I had my local AI do some research and it spat out the above.

Ah, there’s your problem.

the above did catch my attention as fairly normie friendly.

Appearing to be normie friendly. Probably on purpose. Please don’t be dissuaded by real OSS projects that try to give you real information and detailed instructions. It’s not all that complicated and usually much safer.

If all you want is “message daddy” why bother with any of this at all? Just set it up so your kid can only SMS one number.

Or use Signal.

Or maybe you don’t even want to put a SIM card into the phone?

Not sure I’d recommend that; they should be able to call 112 or whatever your country’s equivalent is. (edit: ok most phones allow that even without a sim i think)

Or is this supposed to be some sort of toy with the extra benefit of messaging daddy?

The more I think about it the less I see the point.

Setup a matrix or xmpp server for the messaging.

As a self hoster and a dad, I opted to use SMS and Google chat. Google chat on a kids account will only message contacts you know

Aw crap, I may have awakened something in me…like hosting another bloody service the kids will use once and then just quit. No amount of my over-engineering can solve user apathy…so this time I’m investing less effort :)

Interestingly…the local brain found these

https://github.com/nathanielxd/simple-lan-chat

https://f-droid.org/packages/net.usikkert.kouchat.android/

I still kinda wanna do the XMPP thing now…but I have a nagging suspicion I will be talking to myself or the clanker with it.

Honestly, any secure messaging app would suffice! Maybe minus Signal since that needs a phone number currently.

I use an XMPP server to do messaging for my kid without a “real phone”.

Honestly, with lineage it’d be pretty locked down as they couldn’t do Google play apps for major social media, but I guess it depends on how old and knowledgeable they’d be about loading micro G for that stuff.

Also, iirc, you can use an MDM with Lineage OS bc it’s still Android at its core, which could run Android enterprise, and Manage Engine does full MDM for free under 25 licenses/devices. Might be worth a test to deploy apps that way. I’ve done that for regular Android devices when my oldest wanted more freedom without me having to utilize Google all the time.