Walkie Talkie Mobile App
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Last month, I spent one or two days working on a project: building a Walkie Talkie app. The task was part of a take-home assignment for a job I was interviewing for, which asked candidates to design and build a "walkie talkie solution". Here's a demo:
The Challenge
The challenge was broad and open-ended. I received a two page pdf, but I think the starting paragraph does enough of a good job at revealing how they envisioned the task.
"Your challenge is to design and build a walkie talkie solution, leveraging your strengths and demonstrating your creativity. The assignment is intentionally open-ended to allow you to take the initiative and show us how you shine in your area of expertise."
Tools I used
I used Express and Socket.io for the backend, and React Native with Expo for the frontend. Here's the source code on GitHub if you want to take a look.
To-Do List
If I were to ever get back on this project, here's the stuff I think I'd add:
- Implement audio to be broadcast to all devices in realtime while the person is speaking (currently not fully real-time, as the audio is only sent when recording ends).
- Introduce different channels, similar to how walkie-talkies use various frequencies.
- Fix issues with the hold button, which can bug out if the click is too fast.
- Add a way to identify who is speaking during conversations.
- Create a widget for quick access on mobile devices.