Household field trial
Tests setup, local dashboard, status comprehension, recovery, support export, and ordinary use in a real home.
Field Trials
Real-world evidence, not optimistic assumptions.
Field trials test RelayHub under real conditions: homes, communities, workshops, rural properties, local-only networks, unstable power, non-technical users, degraded operation, recovery events, and practical support limits.
Purpose
A field trial proves what a lab cannot.
Lab validation is essential, but it is not enough. Field trials reveal confusion, support burden, power issues, recovery gaps, documentation failures, environmental limits, and real community behaviour.
Trial types
Different trials answer different questions.
Each field trial should have a bounded purpose. A household setup trial is not the same as a radio trial, recovery trial, or community pilot.
Local-only trial
Tests operation when internet, DNS, WAN routing, or wider connectivity is unavailable.
Community trial
Tests multiple people, roles, documentation, trust, local coordination, and community support expectations.
Hardware trial
Tests specific hardware classes under real power, storage, thermal, and network conditions.
Recovery trial
Tests rollback, guided recovery, support export, reset, transfer, and documentation-only recovery.
Field/radio trial
Tests field deployment and radio-assisted operation only where lawful, validated, and explicitly scoped.
Trial phases
Every field trial needs structure.
A useful field trial starts with scope and ends with a decision. Without evidence, it is only a story.
Define
Set scope, location, participants, hardware, success criteria, risks, support boundaries, and stop conditions.
Prepare
Prepare hardware, documentation, recovery cards, test scripts, evidence templates, and support process.
Deploy
Install or place the node, record conditions, confirm baseline status, and begin the field trial.
Observe
Capture behaviour, issues, participant feedback, degraded states, recovery results, and support needs.
Recover
Run recovery drills, rollback checks, reset/transfer tests, support export tests, and documentation checks.
Report
Produce field notes, evidence artefacts, issue list, lessons learned, and a clear next-step decision.
Evidence artefacts
Trials should leave a trail.
RelayHub should be able to look back at a field trial and know what was tested, what happened, what failed, what was recovered, and what decision was made.
Trial ID
Date and location type
Hardware class
Software version
Network conditions
Power conditions
Setup result
User feedback
Status comprehension
Recovery result
Support export result
Issues found
Photos where appropriate
Screenshots
Validation decision
Conditions captured
Context matters.
A successful test in perfect conditions does not automatically prove readiness in a rural property, workshop, community hall, field site, or no-internet environment.
Connectivity
Internet available, internet unavailable, local-only, intermittent, no peers, degraded, or federation unavailable.
Power
Stable mains, UPS, battery, brownout risk, unplug event, restart behaviour, or field power limits.
Hardware
Board model, storage type, power supply, enclosure, cooling, radio hardware, peripherals, and known limits.
Users
Non-technical users, operators, household members, organisers, volunteers, builders, or developers.
Environment
Household, shed, rural property, event site, workshop, community hall, vehicle, or field location.
Support
No support, documentation-only support, remote guidance, operator-assisted support, or controlled lab support.
Pass, fail, or stop
A trial needs a decision, not just impressions.
RelayHub should treat failure as useful evidence. A failed field trial is better than a false product claim.
Pass
The trial goal was met, evidence was captured, recovery was available, and risks remained acceptable.
Partial pass
The core function worked, but usability, recovery, documentation, hardware, or support needs revision.
Fail
The trial exposed serious issues that must be fixed before further field use.
Stop
The trial must stop if safety, legal, privacy, recovery, or user-dependence risks become unacceptable.
Repeat
The trial should be repeated if evidence is incomplete, conditions were unclear, or results were inconsistent.
Promote
The trial may support promotion only when repeated evidence, recovery, documentation, and validation gates agree.
Safety limits
Field trials must not create false confidence.
A field trial is controlled evidence gathering. It is not a guarantee, emergency service, certified release, or substitute for ordinary safety planning.
A field trial is not a supported release.
A field trial must not be the only communication path for participants.
Emergency use must not be implied unless separately validated and approved.
Radio transmit must not occur unless lawful, configured, validated, and explicitly authorised.
Privacy, anonymity, and censorship-resistance claims must remain realistic.
Participants must understand what is experimental, limited, degraded, or unsupported.
Recovery must be available before expanding the trial.
Support exports must avoid secrets and message content by default.
A field trial may be paused or stopped at any time if evidence shows unacceptable risk.
Trial reports
Field trials should produce readable reports.
Trial reports may be public, private, redacted, or internal. The goal is to make decisions evidence-based while respecting participant privacy, safety, and operational limits.
Report sections
Summary
Trial scope
Hardware used
Software version
Environment
Participants
What was tested
What worked
What failed
Recovery outcome
User comprehension
Open issues
Risk notes
Decision
Next steps
Future field trials
The first trials should test the basics.
RelayHub should validate the smallest useful system before expanding into more complex hardware, federation, marketplace, library, radio, or infrastructure trials.
First household setup
Can a non-technical household set up a node, understand its state, and find recovery without terminal help?
No-internet operation
Can local setup, dashboard, recovery, documentation, and basic operation continue without internet access?
Recovery drill
Can the system recover from failed update, power loss, configuration error, or owner access problem?
Community onboarding
Can a small group understand roles, invitations, trust, local-only state, and support boundaries?
Hardware stability
Can a target hardware class run repeatedly under realistic power, thermal, storage, and network conditions?
Field deployment
Can a node operate usefully outside a normal home environment while remaining understandable and recoverable?
Get involved
Help test RelayHub in real conditions.
RelayHub field trials will need households, community organisers, hardware builders, rural participants, educators, accessibility testers, Reticulum users, and patient early testers willing to capture evidence.
Interested in field trials?
Register interest if you want to participate in future field testing for setup, recovery, local-only operation, hardware stability, community workflows, documentation, or degraded operation.