Anyone else try taking a proctored final from “a beach hammock with perfect Wi‑Fi” and discover reality is a blender, a screaming espresso machine, and a proctor demanding a blank wall like you’re auditioning for prison?
Pitching a thing I wish existed: MHExplorer for students - Mobile Hotspot Explorer, a crowdsourced map of exam-safe, class-friendly study spots for nomadic students who need more than “good vibes and mediocre upload speeds.”
Core idea: go beyond “does the Wi‑Fi work?” and actually answer “can I pass a 3-hour Respondus exam here without getting banned, roasted, or evicted?”
Feature brainstorm:
- Exam-safe filter: blank wall or neutral background options, stable desk, doors you can close, controllable lighting, and staff who won’t ban laptops at 11:02 AM.
- Proctoring compatibility tester: quick checks for Respondus/Proctorio/Examity/ProctorU ports, OS quirks, admin rights, webcam mic detection, and “no, you can’t run it in a VM” warnings.
- Internet quality beyond marketing: latency, jitter, packet loss, sustained upload, and “Zoom-with-screen-share while 50 crypto bros are also Zooming” score.
- Power reality: outlet density heatmap, extension-cord tolerance, breaker trip frequency, and a “generator jump-scare” index for places with scheduled outages.
- Noise heatmaps by hour: blender spikes, motorbike rush o’clock, live DJ surprise, and toddler swarm probability.
- Policy radar: time limits, minimum purchase extortion, “no calls” rules, and whether you’ll get the dreaded “we’re closing early for a salsa class.”
- Student-discount finder: legit deals vs “10% off a $12 espresso.”
- Bathroom line predictor: because proctors love surprise “scan the room” mid-exam.
- Backup connectivity: eSIM coverage by carrier in the building, plus tethering reliability.
- Ethics mode: fuzz exact locations for tiny, easily-overrun spots; opt-out for fragile venues.
- Offline maps + time zone sanity: class schedule conflict checker with DST chaos warnings.
Questions for the hive mind:
1) Real pain points I missed? What’s your personal deal-breaker for exam/class spots?
2) Which proctoring platforms should be on the compatibility list besides Respondus/Proctorio/ProctorU/Examity/Pearson VUE?
3) How would you crowdsource noise and privacy without being creepy? Decibel snapshots? “Wall behind desk” thumbs-up? Staff policy reports?
4) Avoiding the “TikTok destroys the hidden gem” problem: fuzzy pins? Contributor-only details? Venue opt-in for exact coordinates?
5) Cities to pilot? Thinking Chiang Mai, Canggu, Medellín, Lisbon, Tbilisi, KL, Mexico City. Underrated student-nomad hubs?
6) Monetization that isn’t evil: .edu verified free tier? Uni partnerships? Contributor credits? Grants? I’d rather not sell your decibel readings to hedge funds.
7) Edge cases: taking an exam during a border run, ISP throttling mid-final, or macOS updates nuking webcam drivers 8 minutes before go time. War stories welcome.
8) Hardware must-haves to bake into guides: LTE router vs phone tethering, mini-UPS for routers, travel white backdrop, USB ethernet, cheap lighting that doesn’t turn you into a cryptid.
If you’ve survived a proctored exam in a co-working space with a surprise drum circle, I want to learn from your trauma. Would you use MHExplorer for students? What would make it actually useful and not just another app that tells you coffee exists?