Zello app turns your phone into a walkie talkie.

As Hurricane Irma rips through the Caribbean and heads toward Florida, a free smartphone app is emerging as an important tool for search and rescue.
Called Zello, the app lets you use your phone as a walkie-talkie or two-way radio as long as you have a network or WiFi connection. Users can join channels and instantly send voice messages or photos, and the app even works over older 2G networks.
Zello is at the top of the App Store's free-apps chart, and downloads have spiked twice in the past two weeks — during Hurricane Harvey and again on Wednesday as Irma became a Category 5 hurricane.


The app's popularity may have been influenced by viral Facebook and Twitter posts that said it would still work even without cell service, The Washington Post reported. But those posts were incorrect — if cell towers are wiped out in the storm and WiFi goes down, the app will not work.




businessinsider.com