Most of this platform was built against one reference radio and a handful of phones. The fastest way it gets better is people putting it on hardware we've never seen and telling us what broke. If that sounds like your idea of fun, read on.
Patch runs on Android-based POC radios — Inrico, Telo, Runbo, Zello-compatible handsets, carrier-branded units, whatever you've got in a drawer. In theory. Our compatibility list is short because it only contains hardware someone actually put hands on. Every model you test is one more row that helps the next person buy with confidence.
A human (the developer) walks you through provisioning it — usually a few commands over USB. If it works, it goes on the compatibility list with credit to you, if you want it. If it doesn't, that's a bug report we can act on, and the model still gets listed so nobody wastes money on it.
Pick whichever line fits. You don't need to commit to anything — a single email about one radio is genuinely useful.
The headline ask above. Untested POC radios, oddball carrier units, anything with a PTT button.
Run Patch for a week somewhere demanding — a warehouse, an event, a job site, a farm, a family road trip. We want range, battery life, cellular handoff, and audio quality reports from places that aren't a desk.
Cross-organization bridging and an emergency/priority workflow are the areas we most need reality-checked. Tell us how your dispatch actually runs and where a phone app would fail you.
Callsign-aware station ID and EchoLink-style bridging are on the roadmap. We'd rather build them with operators who know the rules than guess at compliance.
The radio client: hardware keycodes, foreground audio services, OEM audio quirks, kiosk mode, OTA updates. Lots of interesting low-level Android here.
The iOS client is the least developed surface we have. If you know CallKit, AVAudioSession, and PushKit, you'd have a lot of room to work.
The admin console and browser dispatch console — maps, live views, the software-radio web client.
The backend: channels, floor control, call signaling, recording, fleet management, billing.
Opus tuning, noise suppression, and making cheap radio mic paths sound acceptable. If you've fought an Android audio HAL before, we should talk.
We claim you can run your own instance with no lock-in. Prove it — stand one up and tell us exactly where the docs lie. That feedback is worth a lot to us.
Setup guides, radio provisioning walkthroughs, and translations. Plain writing that saves someone an hour is a real contribution.
Dispatch interfaces get used under stress, sometimes one-handed, sometimes in gloves and sunlight. If you think about that kind of design, we need you.
Everything is free while Patch is in beta — channels, chirps, bridges, recording. No card, no trial timer.
Your email goes to the person who wrote the code, not a ticket queue. You'll get a real answer.
Radio and app builds before they go to the fleet, if you want to be on the bleeding edge.
Your name or callsign on the compatibility list or contributors list — entirely opt-in. Stay anonymous if you'd rather.
The roadmap is small enough that one good argument can reorder it. Testers have already changed how tones, buttons, and provisioning work.
Volunteering for a beta usually comes with fine print. Here's ours, in full.
One caveat we won't bury: Patch is beta software used for voice communication. Do not make it the only link in a situation where someone's safety depends on the message getting through. Keep your existing radios until you've tested it enough to trust it.
We'd genuinely rather hear it from you than find out the hard way. Email a description and how to reproduce it; we'll confirm receipt, tell you what we're doing about it, and credit you if you want credit. Please don't test against other people's systems or accounts — ask and we'll set you up with something of your own to hammer on.
Send a security reportNo investors, no company behind this — one developer paying for infrastructure. Being straight about the numbers seems better than a vague “support us” button:
The goal is to break even and put anything past that into features — not to make a living off it. That is also why the beta is free and why there's no contract: nobody should be paying for something that might not work on their hardware yet.
Honestly, the most valuable thing you can give isn't money — it's an hour with a radio we've never tested. That unblocks features no amount of hosting credit will.
Ask about helping with costsThere's a members-only forum for compatibility reports, setup questions, and feature arguments — attach a logcat, compare notes on odd hardware, help the next person. Any Patch account gets in; that requirement is the only spam filter we need.