On October 29, 2012 Hurricane Sandy descended upon the New York and New Jersey coastlines. Among the storm’s many casualties were some of the area’s cellphone towers, leaving millions of residents stripped of both electrical power and their usual cell phone service. “I was thinking, ‘Is there any way to make cell phones communicate, so even in the worst case scenario like Sandy, when you have no power or Wi-Fi, you can still communicate?’” Daniela Perdomo says. “The only thing that does that is Bluetooth, and for that you have to be within 20 feet, so you might as well just speak loudly. We figured out that the only way to do that was an external piece of hardware.”

By November 2—less than a week later—Perdomo had sketched out a plan for goTenna, a gadget that could have given people stuck without service the ability to use their phones again. By February 2013, she had physical prototypes.

GoTenna is part disaster relief, part slick smartphone accessory that Perdomo created with the help of Brooklyn-based design firm Pensa (before goTenna, Perdomo worked at a string of New York-based software startups). It’s a five-inch aluminum and nylon device that pairs with a fairly basic iPhone or Android messaging app. When users lose service, rather than scurry around in search of bars, they can instead open that app to text other goTenna users. Texts first get sent to the native goTenna device over Bluetooth LE, where—thanks to the circuit board, radio chips, and antennae hidden within—the gadget emits radio frequencies to transmit an analog version of the message to the receiving user. GoTenna users can use group messaging, and send their current location to contacts—a feature designed especially for emergency situations. The battery lasts about three days on, or up to a year and a half if it’s normally kept switched off.

A Solution That Fits Between High-End and None

“In terms of people communicating when they don’t have service, on one end of the spectrum are walkie-talkies, and on the other are satellite communication devices, which are super expensive,” Perdomo says. “Walkie-talkies are big clunky devices that people use at Disney World. You have to carry them in addition to your phone, they only let you do voice communication, you have to make sure you’re on the same channel, you hear everyone’s’ conversations—they’re annoying.” GoTenna streamlines all of that activity: Besides the two-ounce gadget that stays in your bag, only a smartphone is needed.

Superstorm Sandy provided the impetus for creating goTenna, but as Perdomo and her cofounder (and brother) Jorge Perdomo fleshed out plans for the device, they realized its many applications beyond an emergency: camping, music festivals, large sporting events, skiing, travel in a foreign country. Since the functionality was sure to appeal to a variety of situations—from the most dire to the most recreational—the design needed to as well. So rather than model goTenna's looks after flashlights or helmets, Perdomo says they spent a lot of time surveying the merchandise at REI, considering which gadgets people truly want to use outside.

For a tiny product that could easily be a stocking stuffer come December, goTenna could have big implications. Like Airbnb or Uber, the gadget bucks corporate (or government) authority by giving users a chance to circumvent around the powers that be—in this case, Verizon or AT&T. But Perdomo says that disrupting the telecommunications industry isn’t the company’s goal (plus, it’s not technically possible: for example, New Yorkers can’t use it to reach San Franciscans). Rather, they see goTenna as an important complementary service, and perhaps even a harbinger of what communication could look like in the future. “I do think there is something to decentralizing communication, to the idea that every person can be their autonomous node, and that you can create a communications system on your terms, on need as opposed to access,” she says.

GoTenna costs $150 for two, available here.