nwHacks 2018: WiFind

WiFind is a crowdsourced open Wifi network platform that allow users to hop across public Wifi networks.

I built this project with four friends at nwHacks 2018.

My contributions were:

• Designed and implemented the WiFi functionality of the application.
• Enabled the application to detect new networks and share them with our Firebase backend.
• Enabled the application pull our compiled network data from our backend then detect and connect to the best open WiFi network.
• Designed and implemented the Firebase backend.
• Designed and implemented all of the applications UI.

View our submission here

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The Inspiration and Problem

Canada ranks among the most expensive countries for Mobile Data within the G7. Mobile data has become unaffordable for most people.

One of our team members is too stingy to pay for mobile data, so he has to hop across public wifi networks. He has to ask for passwords and manually connect to the network, as does everyone else who wants the wifi access.

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The Solution

Our application enables devices to achieve greater automatic Wifi management capabilities. When a user connects to an open network through the application, the networks credentials and GPS location are stored in our backend and can be shared across all of the applications users. The application will automatically query for the networks in the area and connect to the the best open network within range. Ultimately creating a crowdsourced set of open Wifi networks.

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The System and Technologies

The application is built in Android and uses Firebase as the backend and database for storing the collected Wifi networks.

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Challenges we ran into

Minor difficulties encountered when initially implementing the WiFi and GPS connection capabilities.

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What's next for WiFind

Global domination, but we'll settle for improvement of automatic wifi credential sharing by enabling users to share private networks with specific friends. Users would be able to allow their friends to automatically access specific private networks, like their home wifi. Further, we would love to implement optimizations in pulling, storing, and ensuring the accuracy of the collected GPS coordinates.

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