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Is it at all possible to get 2 Android handsets to see each other using the wireless interface? I'm not talking full-blown access-point mode. It would be cool if both devices could be actively looking for networks / devices whilst at the same time being 'discoverable' to other devices.

Is this possible in any way?

Thanks

Martin

Martin Cox
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  • Just to mention, Bluetooth isn't an option because of the default time-out for discoverability. I need the devices to be doing a scan and to be discoverable without any user interaction or prompts. – Martin Cox Nov 18 '10 at 12:24
  • And just to add to this further, the wireless interfaces would never actually form a connection - they just see each-other's MAC address. – Martin Cox Nov 18 '10 at 12:48
  • # Wi-Fi Direct I know this is an old question, but now there is a technology called [Wi-Fi Direct](https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/wifip2p) – Bodix Jan 30 '23 at 14:17
  • I would use a server and GPS. Have each device connect to your server and send their GPS coordinates. You can then display users within a certain radius of each other to each other. It's not exactly what you want, but the results would be fairly similar. – gotosleep Jun 13 '11 at 21:35

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Sounds like you want peer-to-peer ad-hoc networking which is not currently supported in Android. See Can Android do peer-to-peer ad-hoc networking? and http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=82

If both devices have NFC chips and are really close (few cm) then doing the discovery with NFC might be an option for you.

Community
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Ed Burnette
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  • Actually neither Marting nor me are looking for a full blown ad-hoc connection, but much more something like bluetooth discoverabilty. As Martin said it is currently unusable because of the time-limit in android. However there is some hope, because the 300sec limit is lifted in honeycomb according to the issue: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6348 Let's see if it would change on the mobile versions too... – daralthus Jun 21 '11 at 20:52
  • Irrelevant answer. Wifi peer to peer is not supported in Android, bluetooth peer to peer is. – Andy Jul 03 '11 at 12:14