The Rise of Helium Community Apps

Since The People’s Network is run by Helium community members in 2,600+ cities across the globe who manage nearly 15,000 Hotspots, it’s no doubt that community is one of the biggest factors in making our decentralized wireless network work. Without the tens of thousands of community members who have begun independently providing coverage across the world and spreading the word about Helium, The People’s Network wouldn’t be anywhere near as extensive or growing as rapidly as it is today.

With such an engaged community who have taken part in building The People’s Network, many community members have found their own ways to contribute to the overall functionality and evolution of the ecosystem. Whether it’s helping others get started with Hotspots and onboarding IoT devices in our Discord community, managing a hosting program to send Hotspots out across the world, or developing community applications and materials for current and prospective Hotspot owners, Helium community members are working diligently day and night to make sure others have the resources they may need to optimally expand and utilize The People’s Network.

As The People’s Network embarks on its journey into 2021, it is important to recognize and shine a light on the applications that have been particularly useful to the ecosystem, coming in handy for practically every current and prospective Hotspot owner and host. Community Apps are on the rise within the Helium community, and here’s what you need to know about them.

SiteBot.com

One of the original Community Apps built for The People’s Network is SiteBot.

Utilizing Helium’s open API, SiteBot provides detailed Hotspot data to current and prospective Hotspot owners and hosts across the world, building on top of the data provided in Helium Explorer. Since its introduction to the Helium community, SiteBot continues to be one of the most frequently used tools to check the total number of Hotspots, total $HNT rewards by day and by region, and individual $HNT rewards for local Hotspots.

SiteBot’s “City” page breaks down total Hotspots and recent $HNT rewards by city. Click on any city to see a breakdown of individual rewards by Hotspot in that city.

On top of the features listed above, SiteBot also lets users sign up for an account to track their favorite Hotspots, monitor Hotspot uptime (sending an email notification if the Hotspot goes offline), receive weekly summaries for their Hotspots, and access the SiteBot API. The best part: it’s free. Give SiteBot a try.

Patrium.app

Created by Ross Dannenberg, one of Helium’s first Patrons, a more recent application for the Helium community is Patrium. Launched in September 2020, Patrium is one of the first community-driven platforms that utilizes data from the Helium Blockchain, taking individual Hotspots’ $HNT rewards and diving in a bit deeper with them.

The launch of Patrium represents an evolution in Community Apps, for the first time offering Hotspot owners a comprehensive solution to more easily manage Hotspot $HNT rewards, track Hotspot locations, and automatically calculate $HNT hosting splits.

Patrium’s homepage details what the Patrium Dashboard is and how to manage Hotspot rewards.

Ross is hard at work making Patrium the ideal platform to manage all Hotspot rewards. Here are some of the features that make Patrium stand out:

1. An Owner’s Dashboard to view all of your Hotspots
2. Host Dashboards that can be sent to hosts to view their split of $HNT
3. Status Dashboards to see Hotspot rewards over any date range
4. Automatic Payment Tracking to track $HNT rewards for hosts
5. Host Matching for hosts to get matched with Hotspot owners

With all of these features, it’s no wonder Hotspot owners have taken an interest in Patrium to simplify their Hotspot management and rewards sharing with hosts. Try Patrium out for yourself and discuss feature ideas and improvements by joining the conversation in the #patrium channel of our Discord.

*Note: Patrium is currently in beta testing but open to sign-ups.*

Hotspotty.net

Last but not least, Hotspotty is one of the newest community sites, launched by Daniel Andrade in December 2020.

With Hotspotty’s simplified user interface, Hotspot owners can:

1. Add up to 10 Hotspots by Hash Address (found in Helium Explorer)
2. Track Hotspot online status and $HNT rewards
3. See average Hotspot rewards per week and per month
4. Add hosts, referrals, and partners for Hotspots
5. See paid and outstanding $HNT earnings for hosts

An example of the “Hotspots” page on Hotspotty, with 3/10 Hotspots tracked.

As with Patrium, Hotspotty is in active development and has its own channel in our Discord to discuss the application’s current features and any features that are still in development. Use Hotspotty to track your Hotspot rewards and join in on discussions in the #hotspotty channel of our Discord.

Helium’s decentralized model has made it quite evident: independently operated networks are the key to rolling out wireless infrastructure quickly. As Hotspots continue to arrive in thousands of new hands across the globe to provide wireless coverage and mine $HNT, useful sites such as SiteBot, Patrium, and Hotspotty are just the beginning for Community Apps that help foster the future expansion of The People’s Network.

Time will tell which community-driven features are found to be most valuable for Hotspot management platforms as the Network grows, but there is no doubt that Community Apps such as SiteBot, Patrium, and Hotspotty are well suited to fulfill any further needs of the community. It’s difficult to imagine The People’s Network without them.

Thank you for the amazing contributions and collaborations from the community in 2020. We’re excited to see what the community will build next in 2021!

Have a Community App you’d like to be featured on the Helium Blog? Get in touch: timothy@helium.com