https://codeberg.org/blast/blastqr
Hello! I’ve been working on blastQR for a couple of years now and I thought this community might find it useful. Feel free to try it and ask me anything!
blastQR is a fully open-source file transfer app and protocol that works completely offline. You can even use it in airplane mode. Data is transferred through sequences of QR codes displayed on a sender device and scanned by a receiver device’s camera. It uses RaptorQ codes so the receiver can recover the file from any sufficiently large subset of frames.
Note that although I have made use of AI as a coding assistant I do not consider this to be a vibe-coded app and I do plan to continue improving it and supporting it in the future.
See video of blastQR in action: https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/038a2567-70c8-47c8-b165-dea858d1aef3
Here are some of the key features:
- Works fully offline: No internet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or servers. Your data stays offline.
- One-to-many distribution: Share the same file with multiple devices simultaneously using a single blastQR broadcast.
- Cross-platform: Android, iOS, macOS, Linux and Windows, plus a command-line tool that can send from a terminal, even over SSH.
- Password encryption: You can optionally encrypt files with an auto-generated password or a custom one.
- Media compression: The app supports lossy image compression and video transcoding for quicker transfers.
- Multiple codes on screen: Shows multiple QR codes at once for higher speed. With 8 codes at 60 fps, transfers peak at around 1.4 MB/s.
- Send multiple files in one go: They’re zipped into one transfer and unpacked into separate files on the receiver.
- Sound feedback: The receiver plays a short tone when it has the whole file, and the sender stops automatically when it hears it.
- Start scanning at any point: No need to catch every code, just keep the camera on the screen until it’s done. Blurry or missed codes don’t matter.
- Regular QR scanner: You can also scan normal QR codes and save them.
- Open protocol that other apps can implement
- Built-in file manager
I’m trying to build a small community around the project so it can be improved and maintained and so it can reach more people in the future.
Downloads for all platforms can be found here: https://codeberg.org/blast/blastqr/releases/latest
I started working on something like this years ago, but I didn’t have the coding skills to pull it off. This is really awesome.
Neither does he.
It’s not that hard. Loop the QR, index the frames without the QR payload, do it ~10fps so you account for camera error, then when all frames/packets are completed, you’re good. There’s a ton of QR scanning libraries out there already.
Yeah, we get it, he used AI. You anti-AI absolutists aren’t actually changing anyone’s minds with this behavior, and it actually seems to be annoying a lot of people in to the opposite direction.
The tech or “tool” as you guys like to call it is the issue. Even if you use it the best way you could you still used a tool created by stealing. You guys can’t see past the next 2 years. I will be laughing my ass up in 5 years when all of you are forced to pay 1k a month just to function.
You all sound like the vegans that show up every time someone mentions a burger that yell “meat is murder!!!”, then run off giggling thinking “I got em”. Even if you have a point, and people would otherwise agree with you, you’re annoying and no one in the real world is taking you seriously.
Literally just “leftists are right but annoying so I’m a fascist now :(” enabler behavior applied to AI.
Being angry also works better in real life in my experience. I think the people who constantly ask others to soften up are opps