Members' guide · Getting started
In the hall
If the internet and the phone network go down, your community can carry on from a laptop in a hall. The four lines on the poster, what keeps working, what other people on the hall's Wi-Fi can read, how old the record is, and how you get home.
What this is
If the internet and the phone network go down, your community does not have to stop. One of its owners can bring its record to a laptop in a hall, a school or a kitchen, switch on the hall, and put up a poster. You join the laptop's Wi-Fi with the phone you already have, and carry on offering, asking, trading and messaging with your neighbours.
Coming with the next release. The hall door in the BeanPool app is being built. Until it ships, nothing here works yet, and this page tells you what to expect.
The four lines on the poster
The poster has four lines, and they are the whole of it:
- Turn on Airplane mode, then turn Wi-Fi back on. This stops your phone sending everything over the mobile network, which has nothing to say right now.
- Join the hall's Wi-Fi. If your phone asks to stay connected, say yes. The Wi-Fi's name and password are written on the poster. Your phone may say it has no internet. That is true, and it is fine.
- Open the BeanPool app and scan this code. It takes you to the hall laptop. Your app checks that the laptop really is your community before it moves, and only then. Use the code, or in the app type the laptop's address from the poster.
- No app on your Android phone? Scan this code to get it from the laptop. Coming later. Until then, put the app on your phone now, before the lights go out.
If it will not connect, check that your phone's date and time are right.
What keeps working
Almost everything: the Market, offering and asking, deals from start to finish, sending Beans, your balance and the community's ledger, direct messages and group chats, events, polls and your groups, photos, and signing in on a second phone with your 12 words.
The hall has one record, the laptop's. Whatever you do goes there.
What does not
- The web app. In the hall it does not work, because Safari cannot make or use your key on a page that does not use https. If you use an iPhone, install the app before the lights go out. An owner's Settings page does work.
- Notifications to a closed app, and the map's streets.
- Signing in with Google, Apple or Facebook, and other communities. Your 12 words always work.
What others on the hall's Wi-Fi can read
On the hall's Wi-Fi, what you post and your balance can be read by others on that Wi-Fi: posts, balances, who trades with whom, and photos. Your messages stay private. Direct messages and group chats are locked on the phones, so the laptop holds them only as locked lines that nobody can read.
How old the record is
The laptop's record is as old as its last copy, and the app says so in a line at the top: "The record is as of Tue 3 Nov, 14:02. Trades made since then on the old server are not here." If you traded after that time, tell an owner. They write it down for when the internet is back, and you settle it with an ordinary send.
Going home
When the internet returns, an owner switches the hall off. Your app checks that your community's own address answers as the same community, and carries your copy home. You tap nothing, and the line at the top changes to say the internet is back. If the laptop has been packed up, your app tries your community's address now and then, and offers one card: "Go back to it?"
The hall's record is the one that counts. What the old server recorded after the laptop's last copy, and what people outside the hall did on it, is not in the hall. Nothing you posted in the hall is lost.
What to do now
- Have the app on your phone. Especially on an iPhone.
- Write down your 12 words and keep them somewhere safe (see Your 12 words).
- Check your phone's date and time are right.
- Know who your owners are. They are the ones who bring the hall up.
Related
- Using BeanPool in a web browserThe web app does most of what the phone app does. Joining the global community in a browser, getting your account back there with your sign-in, putting the same account on your phone, and where the web app's buttons have different names.
- Your 12 wordsThe 12 words are the key to your account. Why they matter, where to find them, how to keep them safe, and adding a sign-in as a second way back.
- Getting helpWhere to look when you are stuck, and who to ask.
- How this community worksThe rules and settings for your community: who can join, Beans, decisions, message requests, and safety.
- Your privacyWhat others can see about you, and the settings that control it.
The same guide is in the BeanPool app, and works there without a connection: open Settings, then "Help & how it works" under BeanPool. Every other rule, guide and manual is in the Help Centre. Guide version 165.