Bru: Send and read SMS from the browser
13 points by wezm
13 points by wezm
this is really cool. i've been using KDE connect for this, but the UI is very clunky on linux. it almost feels unfinished? also i don't get contact names there so that already makes bru.works a massive improvement. my personal preference for something like this would be a desktop app but i think the browser approach with iroh and the rest is really smart.
Does this work with RCS enabled? That seems to be a big catch for these solutions. I used to do something similar using termux-sms-list but that only works with SMS, not RCS.
From what I can tell, RCS messages should be available through the Telephony database, with the exception of E2EE RCS messages, which is filtered out by the system since Android 17 unless you're system signed or set as the default SMS application.
That being said, the Telephony database has always been a bit weird, and RCS hasn't exactly helped there.
FWIW the Bru ROADMAP.md has this entry:
RCS-support - this might not be possible at all. If not, we need to communicate that somehow, maybe.
I very much dislike sms/texting, and instead prefer to use chat systems , among the numerous reasons because they tend to allow for use from different devices. While i don't like WhatsApp as a company, i do like the way their app works, or at least can work either via mobile phone or desktop (well, really, its web client)....and, yes, i know that whatsApps is nothing more than XMPP....But, as much as i prefer chat systems (for their flexibility to use across devices), about 30% ~ 50% of the people i communicate with (on an important basis) all use conventional sms/text - e.g. family, some non-tech friends, etc.). So, i look forward to this and other options becoming available/popular! Good luck to the author of Bru, and wish them well on this!
Also, separately, i saw Iroh come across my feed some time ago, but did not pay attention...until now after reading this post. Now reading what Iroh offers, it sounds really, really cool! The first thing i thought was a rust-based replacement for syncthing...then promptly saw no point in replacing what already works pretty solidly. However, i can envision other use-cases and other possible apps (I'm thinking like offline-first apps) that could greatly benefit from something like embedded Iroh. Very cool!