About the CicadaChat

CicadaChat is a chat app for whoever is near you. Open it and you land in a room made of the people within a kilometre of where you are standing. No sign-up, no feed, no follower counts. Just the people around you, right now.

This blog is where we write about it: what's new in the app, how the rooms work, ideas for starting a conversation, and stories from the people who use it.

Our Passion

We created CicadaChat because we believe that technology should not only connect people who are far away — it should also help us connect with the people who are right next to us.

Why We Built CicadaChat

Today, people are becoming more private than ever. We communicate online with friends, colleagues, and people around the world, yet somehow, the connections in our own neighborhoods are becoming weaker.

Sometimes, you don't even know the name of the person living next door.

You may pass your neighbors every day without ever saying hello. You may live in the same building, walk the same streets, shop at the same stores, or spend time in the same places, but there is often no easy way to simply talk to one another.

And then, one day, you might need something.

Maybe you want to ask your neighbors a question. Maybe you need to borrow something. Maybe you want to share some local information. Maybe you simply want to talk to the people around you.

But how do you find them?

That is one of the reasons we built CicadaChat.

With CicadaChat, people around you are already there. You don't need to send friend requests, exchange usernames, or wait for someone to accept a connection. Just open the app and start chatting with the people nearby.

There are already some apps that offer nearby chat, but many of them require accounts, logins, complicated setup, or confusing user experiences.

We wanted to make it much simpler.

Open CicadaChat. See the people around you. Start talking.

A Stadium Full of People — One Simple Chat Room

Imagine you are watching a football match in a stadium.

Thousands of people are sitting around you, experiencing the same game, celebrating the same goal, and sharing the same moment.

Wouldn't it be great to have one simple chat room where everyone in the stadium could talk?

With traditional chat apps, creating that connection can be surprisingly complicated. People need to find each other, create or join groups, share links, exchange codes, or complete several steps before they can start talking.

With CicadaChat, the idea is simple.

If everyone is in the same physical area, they can be part of the same location-based room.

The stadium room is already there.

Just open the app and chat.

No complicated invitations. No searching for usernames. No need to organize a giant group.

Just people sharing the same place and the same moment.

Your Building Should Have a Chat Room

Think about your apartment building or office building.

There are probably hundreds of people around you who live or work in the same place, but most of them don't know each other.

Sometimes you want to ask something simple:

• “Did anyone find my package?”
• “Does anyone know when the water will be turned off?”
• “Can someone recommend a good plumber?”
• “Is anyone going to the supermarket?”
• “Could someone help me with this?”

In many cases, even these simple conversations are surprisingly difficult because there is no easy way to reach the people in your building.

CicadaChat makes this easier.

Open the building's location room, post your message, and let the people around you see it.

It turns your physical location into a simple digital community.

The Restaurant 500 Meters Away

Here is another simple example.

Imagine you want to order a plate of cơm sườn from a restaurant just 500 meters from your home.

You would like to call or message them to place an order, but you don't have their contact information.

So you have to walk there just to order your food.

It sounds like a small problem, but this happens all the time in everyday life.

Now imagine that you, the restaurant owner, and other people nearby are all using CicadaChat.

You could simply open the nearby chat room and communicate directly.

No searching for contact information.

No adding friends.

No complicated setup.

Just open the app and talk to the people and places around you.

Bringing Back Local Connection

CicadaChat is not about replacing social networks.

It is about bringing something back that we feel is slowly disappearing:

the simple connection between people who share the same place.

• Your neighbors.
• People in your building.
• People at the same event.
• People in the same stadium.
• People at the same street, café, park, or local area.

Sometimes, the people you need to talk to are not far away at all.

They are already right there.

CicadaChat was created to make that connection effortless.

One room for every distance

A room in CicadaChat isn't a place you join. It is a circle drawn around you, so two people a few streets apart see slightly different conversations. The blog is organised the same way, with one section for each rung of the ladder:

• Within 100 m: the same building or block.
• Within 500 m: the same stadium, arena or campus.
• Within 1 km: your neighbourhood, and the room you start in.
• Within 10 km: your town or city district.
• Within 50 km: your wider region.
• Global: everyone, wherever they are. No location needed.

Privacy comes first

Nobody on CicadaChat ever sees where you are, only roughly how far away you are, rounded more coarsely the wider the room. Our Privacy Policy explains exactly what we store and who can see it.

Get in touch

Ideas, questions or a story to share? Write to support@cicadachat.com.