We turned dead Helium hotspots into a private network
Verus Relay carries calls it cannot hear and messages when you have no signal, and keeps talking by radio when the internet goes down. It runs in ten countries today, and if your old Helium hotspot is earning next to nothing, it can join.
It is called Verus Relay, and it runs today: it carries Verus calls it cannot hear, passes on messages from phones with no signal, and keeps talking by radio when the internet goes down.
The first relays were old Helium hotspots, crypto miners that now earn almost nothing. Rebuilt, each one became a Verus hotspot; we call them Verus Relays. What began as a detour from building the Verus app became part of Verus itself, and it led to a new patent filing.
The most resilient network is the one already sitting in people's homes.
Private calls, carried by boxes that cannot listen
Verus calls try to go straight from your phone to theirs. Often they cannot, because home broadband and mobile networks hide phones behind shared addresses. When that happens the call is passed along by a relay in the middle.
The relay only ever handles sealed packets. Your voice is locked on your phone and unlocked on theirs; in between, the relay sees scrambled data with a delivery address on it, and passes it on.
Your phone asks several relays at once and the first to answer carries the call: not the nearest on a map, the quickest from where you are standing. If a relay goes quiet, it simply stops being asked. Try it below.
Verus Relay today
Eighteen relays are live right now. These are the five community relays. Knock one out and watch where the call goes.
Live figures load from the Verus Relay network.
A box that earned under a penny a month now carries calls it cannot hear.
Round the world in seconds
On 30 September Verus Relay went global. New relays switched on in Virginia, Oregon, Singapore and Sydney, so a call far from Britain no longer has to be relayed through London. By 1 October Montreal, Tokyo, Seoul, São Paulo and Cape Town had joined them, taking Verus Relay to ten countries on six continents.
Every Verus Relay, right now
This is the same live map as on the Verus website. Each glowing hex has a relay reporting in at this moment, so it grows as new relays switch on. Tap one to fly down to its city.
Reading the network…
Where the relays are
- Greater Manchester, radio relays
- London
- Manchester
- Stockholm
- Virginia, US
- Oregon, US
- Singapore
- Sydney
- Montreal, Canada
- Tokyo, Japan
- Seoul, South Korea
- São Paulo, Brazil
- Cape Town, South Africa
Relays run on Verus's own servers on six continents and on rebuilt hotspots around Greater Manchester, Verus Relay - 001 to 004 and 006, and more switch on as people host them. A new relay sets itself up the first time it is plugged in, updates itself with releases signed by Verus and uses about as much power as a phone charger.
So we sent a message round the world, and logged every lap. On 30 September an ordinary Verus text went from London to Virginia, on to Oregon, across to Sydney, up to Singapore and home to London, sealed the whole way. We did it fifty times: all fifty arrived, and a typical lap took 2.95 seconds.
On 1 October we doubled the ring to ten cities: London, Montreal, Virginia, Oregon, Tokyo, Seoul, Sydney, Singapore, Cape Town, São Paulo and home. Thirty laps, all thirty delivered, a typical lap 7.14 seconds for about 167,600 km. Switch between the two below.
One message, ten cities, one lap
Every leg passes through the Verus server in Stockholm, so each lap covers about 167,600 km, more than four times round the Earth.
Press Play to follow the message, one city at a time.
Slowed down so you can follow it. The real lap took 7.14 s.
Each of these relays even has its own Verus chat. Say "ping" and it answers with its city and its own clock. Say "round the world" and it sends a message round the ring and tells you how long each leg took.
Messages when you have no signal
This now works on real phones. Your phone cannot see a mast but can see a Verus Relay nearby over Bluetooth. It seals your message so only the person you are writing to can open it, then hands it to the relay, which sends it on over the internet or, if its own connection is down, by radio to a relay that has one.
One message, no signal
Choose how the relay is connected, then press Send, or step through it yourself.
You type it
Broken down on the A57 by Snake Pass. I'm safe, walking to the garage. 3% battery.
No mobile signalYour phone encrypts it
9f 3a c1 07 e2 58 b4 1d 6a f0 22 8c 5e 91 d7 03 4b a8 ee 16 70 3c 29 c5
Only the person you're writing to can open itIt's sealed into a package
Addressed for delivery, contents sealedBluetooth to the nearest relay
The relay can't read itOut by whatever works
Internet to Verus
This relay has internet, so it goes straight to Verus.On 30 September at 13:44 an iPhone in Aeroplane mode, Bluetooth only, sent an ordinary Verus message through Verus Relay - 001 to an Android phone. The relay never saw what it said, and it worked again just before three o'clock.
In the chat, a message that went by relay shows a small Bluetooth symbol beside its tick, and your phone stocks up on what it needs while it still has signal. It is live in Verus for Mac and running in test builds for iPhone and Android.
It works on iPhone and Android, whichever way the relay sends it on. Your phone never uses the radio itself: it hands the message over by Bluetooth and the relays pass it between them.
When the internet goes, the boxes still talk
Inside every old hotspot is a long-range radio that needs very little power. We have put it to work. Each relay can now send short messages to another relay by radio, with no internet anywhere in between, and the other relay sends back a receipt in two or three seconds.
Anyone can transmit on the air, so a relay that believed everything it heard would be worse than useless. Every message between relays is encrypted and signed by a security chip already inside the box. Try slipping a fake one past them.
Relay to relay, by radio
Send a message from one relay to the other with no internet, or try to slip a fake one past them.
Two relays, radio only, no internet in the path.
Verus Relay - 004 joined the radio on 30 September and within the hour could hear 001 and 002, each relay proving who it is with its own security chip. Verus Relay - 001 to 004 and 006 are online today. Radio is for short things, texts and the start of a call, never the call itself, and each relay keeps to a handful of radio messages an hour to stay within the rules.
That matters most when things go wrong. Storm Arwen cut power to nearly a million homes in November 2021, and Ofgem found nearly 4,000 still without it a week later; many phone masts run on batteries that last hours, not days. A network that lives in people's homes, on boxes that sip power, can keep a short message moving when the big networks cannot. It will never replace 999, but it can help you tell someone you are safe.
Masts working.
What a relay can and cannot see
Privacy is the point of Verus, so here it is plainly.
| A Verus Relay can see | A Verus Relay can never see |
|---|---|
| That a sealed call or message is passing through, and roughly how much | What you say, write or send |
| Where to pass it next | Your name or your phone number |
Where the boxes came from
Helium paid people in crypto to host small radios in their windows. I came to it early: on 9 April 2020 the Helium map of Britain and Ireland showed just four hotspots, and one of them was mine.
At their peak my eleven hotspots earned close to £600 a week. By September 2026 all eleven together earned less than a penny a month.
As miners they were finished. As hardware they were perfect, so I wiped them and gave them one job.
From mining to relaying
- 6 Apr 2020My first hotspot is added to the network from ManchesterBlock 280,420
- 9 Apr 2020Four hotspots on the whole map of Britain and Ireland. The Manchester one is mine
- The peakThe hotspots earn close to £600 a week
- 28 Sep 2026The first hotspot is rebuilt as Verus Relay - 001
- 29 Sep 2026Seven Verus relays live and in rotation
- 29 Sep 2026Verus Relay - 001 and 002 hear each other by radioNo internet in the path
- 30 Sep 2026The first signed text message goes from one relay to another by radio, and a signed receipt comes back2.4 seconds
- 30 Sep 2026Bluetooth to Verus Relay - 001, radio to 002, internet to Verus: a sealed message crosses two relays with the first one offlineAbout 25 seconds there and back
- 30 Sep 2026An iPhone in Aeroplane mode sends a Verus message by Bluetooth through Verus Relay - 001, and an Android phone receives itFirst real phone message by relay
My Helium hotspot isn't earning. What should I do?
Turn it into a Verus hotspot. Most Helium hotspots are a small, always-on computer with Bluetooth, a long-range radio and a network port, exactly what a Verus Relay needs. Instead of mining for next to nothing, it carries private calls, passes on messages for phones with no signal and talks to other relays by radio.
- Check what you have. RAK and SenseCAP M1 hotspots have a Raspberry Pi 4 inside and are the easiest to convert. The UK and European version is marked 868 MHz.
- Visit Verus. Go to verusapp.co.uk/relay and tell us which box you have.
- Get the Verus Relay card. Choose a ready-made memory card posted to you, or a download to write to a card yourself. It replaces the old Helium mining software, which let its makers log in remotely.
- Swap the card in and plug it back in. It sets itself up, joins the network and appears on the live map, updating itself from then on.
Changed your mind? Keep your old Helium card. Put it back and the box goes back to running Helium.
No spare hotspot? A spare laptop or a computer that is on all day can carry calls too. A relay needs a steady broadband connection and uses a little of your upload while calls pass through it. Buy the UK and European version of a hotspot, marked 868 MHz; American 915 MHz units will not talk to relays here.
Free white paper · PDF, 12 pagesVerus Relay: adapting idle hardware to carry private calls and messagesEvery kind of box that works and what it costs, the conversion step by step, the full technical specification, the encryption and the measured results.Download the white paper →
Why it matters to me
Throwing working computers away is a waste, and a private network gets stronger the more hands it is spread across. Verus now has 15 UK patent applications pending, listed on verusapp.co.uk/patents. This work led to GB2622942.7, "Selecting a relay for a call in a communication network", filed on 30 September 2026, alongside Verus's earlier filing on long-range radio relays, GB2621375.1.
It took a shelf of radios I first put on the network in 2020 and made them part of Verus, talking to each other again. It will not be the last old box I bring back.
Common questions
My Helium hotspot is not earning. What should I do?
Turn it into a Verus hotspot. Most Helium hotspots are a small always-on computer with Bluetooth, a long-range radio and a network port. Visit verusapp.co.uk/relay, tell Verus which box you have, and choose a ready-made memory card by post or a download to write yourself. Swap it in for the Helium miner software and plug the box back in. It then carries private Verus calls and passes on messages for phones with no signal.
What can I do with an old Helium miner?
Reuse it rather than bin it. RAK and SenseCAP M1 hotspots have a Raspberry Pi 4 inside and make good Verus hotspots: the Bluetooth hears phones nearby, the radio reaches other Verus hotspots, and the network port carries calls. Buy or use the UK and European 868 MHz version.
Which Helium hotspots can become a Verus hotspot?
The easiest are the RAK Hotspot V2 and the SenseCAP M1, both of which have a Raspberry Pi 4 inside. Bobcat, Linxdot, Panther X2 and Nebra units can also be converted with community software, with more effort. A spare laptop or computer can carry calls too, without the radio.
Can a Verus hotspot listen to my calls or read my messages?
No. Calls and messages are locked on your phone and only unlocked by the person you are talking to. A Verus hotspot passes on sealed data it has no key for, and keeps no database, no call log and no copy of your messages.
Can Verus send messages when my phone has no signal?
Yes. If a Verus hotspot is nearby, your phone seals your message and hands it over Bluetooth, and the hotspot sends it on. If that relay has no internet, it passes the message by radio to one that has. This works on iPhone and Android, and is live in Verus for Mac and running in test builds for iPhone and Android.
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