Peer(s) to peer(s) messaging solution for Android?

Issue

I need to enable my Android application to support a peer to peer style communication system that would allow 2 or more devices running my app to communicate with each other. (exchange positional data, a minor ID and some feature type data, like chat messages or a block list, etc...)

These devices will 99% of the time be wifi only, so running an XMPP server is out of the question. I need a true peer to peer approach. I'll likely know all the devices running my app, so peer discovery doesn't have to be an issue. I was looking at AllJyon as well but I haven't developed an opinion on it yet.

Anyone have any experience with a peer to peer approach to messaging data between a "pool" of know devices? I can straight implement a socket solution with a client and server in the same app. But there's a lot to consider with polling and I know I'll stumble across something else that someone else would have thought of.

Maybe a gaming network library for 4 player gaming?

Thank you.

Solution

Might as well answer my own question.

I've looked at AllJoyn but the AllJoyn daemon is a PITA with Eclipse. Using the Google ADT bundle v21.0 the AllJoyn Chat app won't import and run. The native JNI library will fail to load on the emulator or device. I then followed the AllJoyn setup instructions to the letter and managed to get the Chat sample running with Eclipse 3.7.2 and the Google ADT. However with both Eclipse versions I've never been able to create my own AllJoyn project from scratch. The damn JNI library won't load. I've followed the instruction and posted to the forums without luck.

Looked at Sip2Peer. Was never able to get the samples working, and the documentation is really lacking. However I've seen a bunch of evidence that it works and people use it, just not me.

I'm going it alone. I'll just implement a server/client and work out a broadcast method for discovery.

Answered By - dubmojo