iPhone · App Store — Android · beta
On iPhone, CitizenBand Radio is on the App Store: free, no account, with its Apple Watch app. On Android, the app is still in a closed beta: we open access on request through Google Play. One email is enough, and you'll get the invitation in reply.
The app is in internal testing on the Play Store. We add your address to the testers list, you receive the link, and Google Play installs and updates the app like any other.
What we need: the Google account address of your phone Request Android accessCitizenBand Radio installs from the App Store like any other app: an iPhone with iOS 17 or later. The Apple Watch app comes with it. Nothing to request, nothing to wait for.
Free · no account · 18+ Download on the App StoreA CB lives by density: we open the Android beta group by group, where several radios will be on the same channel on the same day. If you're coming with your club, your convoy or your team, say so in the email: we'll open access for everyone at once. And if you're on your own, the test channel still answers you.
With the button above, or at contact@solobisoft.com: your phone model, your Google account address, and in a word what you have in mind.
An email from us, with the Google Play link. Nothing else to do on your side in the meantime.
Open the link on your phone, agree to become a tester, then install CitizenBand from Google Play. If you had the trial version installed outside the store, uninstall it first: the two can't live side by side.
On iPhone, none of this: the App Store installs the app directly.
On first launch, the app asks for the microphone, location and notifications. Choose your call sign, and you're on channel 19. If nobody is in range, the radio offers a test: press, say something, and it answers “loud and clear”. Everything works.
Each one serves one specific purpose, and nothing else.
To talk. It's only open while you hold the button, never listening all the time.
To know who is within your range. The app never sends your coordinates, only an area of a few kilometres, and only when you move to another one. On iPhone, choose “Always”: that's what lets the radio keep listening when the screen is off.
To show the radio while it runs in the background, and to tell you when a channel comes alive. Without them, the phone may stop the radio when the screen turns off.
Only if you want to use a button, a headset or a watch to talk.
Only if you give the “Insist” level to a watched word: that's what lets the screen light up on an alert and the alarm ring despite silent mode. They're requested from the Settings screen, when you tick the box, never at launch.
Only to scan an event's QR code. Nothing is photographed or kept.
What gets stuck, what's missing, what surprises you: write to us, even for one line. On Android it's still a beta. What you say on the channels never stays longer than 24 h.
The radio runs over 4G or Wi‑Fi. In a dead zone you can still talk: the message goes out when the network returns, and what you missed is played back to you.
Screen off and listening, the app uses less than half a percent of battery per hour. On a long trip, plug the phone in anyway.
During a call, the radio pauses and then plays back what was said.
An Apple Watch or a Wear OS watch can act as the button, with its own microphone. On iPhone, the Apple Watch app installs with the phone app. On Android, the Wear OS companion is in beta: if you have one, mention it in the email.