Offline-first family messaging
Text your family when there's no signal.
CruiseMesh carries end-to-end encrypted messages between phones over the ship's Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, so nobody needs an internet package. It's built for cruise ships and anywhere coverage is unreliable. You don't need an account or a phone number, and nothing tracks you. A hand-me-down phone with no SIM works fine.
Read the transcript instead
Picture it: a cruise with the whole family. The kids are at the pool, grandma's at the buffet — and your text? Not going anywhere. There's no signal at sea.
On the cruise where CruiseMesh was born, ship messaging cost seven dollars per phone, per day. For a family of four, that's nearly two hundred dollars in a week — just to say "meet at the buffet at six."
CruiseMesh is different. Text your family when there's no signal — free on board, end-to-end encrypted, no accounts, no SIM card, no internet package.
It uses whatever's around. Phones find each other over the ship's Wi-Fi, no internet needed. Up close, they talk over Bluetooth. And family phones carry sealed messages along, until paths cross.
And when any one phone does get online — with an optional pass, or your own server — it carries the whole family's messages home and back. Sealed envelopes, that no one else can read.
Messages that find a way through. CruiseMesh. Free and open source, at cruisemesh.app.
Why CruiseMesh exists
A $7-a-day surprise sparked a better idea.
On a cruise with my family and friends, I found out that sending them a quick message meant buying the cruise line's $7-per-phone, per-day messaging plan. That isn't even internet access. For four people on a seven-day cruise, that's $196 just to coordinate dinner, share a meeting point, or say "I'm back on board."
That felt absurd. Phones can already talk to each other without the internet: over the ship's Wi-Fi when it allows it, over Bluetooth when they're nearby, and by carrying sealed messages along until paths cross.
CruiseMesh grew from one question: what if family messaging just used the connections already in your pocket?
— David, who builds CruiseMesh
On our cruise
messaging cost
$7
per phone
every day
CruiseMesh messaging is free on board
How messages get through
Messages are sealed on your phone and delivered by whichever route exists. Minutes of delay are expected and fine.
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Ship Wi-FiPhones on the same ship network find each other and deliver instantly, across the whole ship, without an internet package. Some ships block phone-to-phone traffic; the app checks and tells you.
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Direct contactPhones within Bluetooth range exchange messages immediately.
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Carried alongA family member's phone carries your sealed message until paths cross with the recipient.
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Internet deliveryWhen any one family phone gets online, it carries the whole family's sealed messages up and back, including to family at home. It needs a Shore Pass or your own server.
Try it in your living room
You don't have to wait for a ship. Install CruiseMesh on two phones and add each other as friends. Then put both phones in airplane mode, tap Bluetooth back on (airplane mode switches it off), and send a message. It arrives with no internet at all. That's the same delivery your family will use at sea.
Internet delivery
A Shore Pass gets your family's messages off the ship. It gives your family a mailbox on the internet, which is what lets people reach you when you're apart, and it's how one internet purchase covers everyone: when any single family phone gets online (one Wi-Fi package, or a café on a port day), it carries the whole family's messages up and back, including to family at home who aren't on the cruise at all. Set up every phone that should be reachable, including the ones staying home.
Everything travels as sealed envelopes. The service can't read message contents, sender identities, or receipts, and it deletes envelopes after delivery or 30 days.
Free on the ship. One small pass for the internet part.
On the ship
Free · forever
- Delivery over ship Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
- Family phones carry messages for each other
- Works on no-SIM phones and Wi-Fi-only tablets
- End-to-end encrypted, no accounts
- Open source: audit it, or run your own
The mesh never needs a purchase. Source on GitHub.
Shore Pass
$9.99 · 30 days from purchase · whole family
- Reach family at home, from the ship
- One pass covers all your family's phones
- Any one phone online carries everyone's messages
- Refundable, no questions asked
One payment, no subscription. Prefer to self-host? The same server is free to run yourself.
Private by design
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End-to-end encryptedMessages leave your phone as sealed envelopes. Servers and other phones never see plaintext.
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No accountsIdentity is a keypair generated on your phone. You never enter an email address, a phone number, or a password. That's also why it runs on devices other messengers can't sign in on: a kid's hand-me-down phone with no SIM, or a grandparent's Wi-Fi-only tablet.
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No trackingThe apps and this site contain no analytics, advertising, or crash-reporting SDKs.
Details in the privacy policy.
Status
CruiseMesh is open source and in active development. The Android and iOS apps are in release testing; store listings aren't public yet, so build from source if you want it today.