Android requirements

[Bob Haugen]

Hey PhotosynQers,

What's the device/OS requirements for the Android app?

And do people really need to install Eclipse and the Android ADT Plugin on a computer to install the app?

I might be collaborating with some low-tech people on PhotosynQ experiments, and I suspect that will be a high bar for them. I could help them: they could install from my computer. But maybe the app will be more installable by Beta time?

Also, will the device work (do something useful) without the phone?

Thanks, and forgive me if the answers were all out there somewhere and I missed them,

Bob

[Greg Austic]

Good questions, I'm sure you're not the only one with them (I made a FAQ on the website with some of these questions also).  See my answers below:

On Tue, Dec 24, 2013 at 9:47 AM, Bob Haugen <bob.h...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey PhotosynQers,

What's the device/OS requirements for the Android app?

OS - Android 2.2 or higher
Right now it's only for Android OS (iOS requires a lot more hullabaloo, so maybe later).  The app testing done so far has been on fairly new devices (4.0 and higher), but we will be testing on android versions going all the way back to Android version 2.2 by the start of the Beta.  Talia, our app developer, has said she's pretty sure we can make it compatible though the screen layout may be a little funky for older android versions.

Device - Bluetooth capable, web connected smart phone

You will definitely need bluetooth capabilities (most phones do) as the communication is done over bluetooth.  The device must be web connected while taking the measurement, so you'll need a smart phone which is has a internet data plan of some kind.  It's not a lot of data, so if you don't have a data plan it's possible you could get one in which you just pay per megabyte transferred or something - it shouldn't be expensive.  I know that's a limitation, and in the long run we will cache measurements and only send them once a connection is made, but for now that's probably not possible by the time beta starts. 

Also, we'll do our best to make a list of compatible device by the time beta rolls out, but we certainly won't get to every phone.

And do people really need to install Eclipse and the Android ADT Plugin on a computer to install the app?

No, definitely not!  Beta testers will just need to download the app from the Android App store (or maybe it's called the Google Play store now?  Dunno... anyway) and that's it.

What you're referring to is if you want to take part in the development (ie coding or forking) of the PhotosynQ android app itself, then you'd probably want to download Eclipse and the ADT plugin. 

 

I might be collaborating with some low-tech people on PhotosynQ experiments, and I suspect that will be a high bar for them. I could help them: they could install from my computer. But maybe the app will be more installable by Beta time?

Yep - see above.  Should be easy to install the app and use the device.  I think the tricky part for most folks will be interpreting what you're seeing, and making sense of the data.

 

Also, will the device work (do something useful) without the phone?

Good question.  You can connect the device to your computer using a USB -- microUSB cable and communicate with it via the serial port.  There are a couple options for doing that, though I just use Arduino's native Serial Communication.

If you do that, you won't have any nice user interface to direct you as you will on the app - it'll be pretty crude, and you'll receive the data as a JSON (kind of like a .csv file except with curly braces and a slightly different format).  This is how I often test the device, and I just copy the JSON into excel and graph it manually.  We have future plans to create a GUI for users to interface with the device via a normal computer.

So simple answer is yes you will be able to use it without the phone, but the user interface won't be very pretty.

PS - If there's enough demand for this among beta testers, I'll make a video on how to do it.

 

Thanks, and forgive me if the answers were all out there somewhere and I missed them,

Bob

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Greg Austic

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[Chris Fastie]

It looks like this information is different from that in the FAQ: http://blog.photosynq.org/faq/. Just to get the latest information I am interested in confirmation that all Android versions back to 3.0 will be supported. Also, what is the status of using the MultispeQ with a PC? Has a browser plugin been developed to allow complete functionality with a PC? Does Bluetooth work with a PC? Is a special cable required?

Thanks,

Chris

[Sebastian Kuhlgert]

Both informations are a little outdated and we try to keep up with updating the information. We will provide more information in the next weeks on PhotosynQ.org

Android devices

I'm not developing or using Android, so Greg will be able to give you more informations. The current version of the app can be easily installed from the Google Play Store. If you can successfully install it, please let us know, so we can compile a list of working devices.

MultispeQ and PC

The app for Google Chrome can be installed from the Google Chrome Store. Other browsers are not supported due to the missing ability to communicate with serial devices by standard. You can connect your MultispeQ using a standard micro-USB cable or Bluetooth. Both connections work for Windows and Mac, Ubuntu is currently USB only. The app has similar functionality compared to the mobile app. Further it contains tools to develop measurement protocols and macros for evaluating measurements. All is connected to the PhotosynQ platform. 

I hope that helps

Sebastian