Wham City Lights: mobile-powered concert light shows without WiFi [VIDEO]

At large outdoor music festivals with thousands of concert-goers, it’s virtually impossible to access any wireless network because of how many people are trying to log on.
So how do you sync up the thousands of smartphones at said festival so each phone flashes the same sequence of lights and produces a makeshift, hand-held light show? Use ultrasonic frequencies.
That’s exactly how Wham City Lights has enabled interactive light shows at Brad Paisley’s concerts, Intel sales conferences and the shows of cofounder and electronica music artist Dan Deacon. Pre-programmed light shows are created by the three-person startup, and then transmitted via an ultrasonic data signal to smartphones at concerts through the speakers on stage and the microphones in each person’s phone.
More than 150,000 people have used the Wham City Lights app so far, and the three-person team just sold two light shows to two countries in Africa.
The Mount Vernon-based startup gave a full demonstration of how its light show app works at July’s Baltimore TechBreakfast.
Watch the video: