Re: WiFi Scan Without Root

[RichardC]

Have a look at and/or talk to the author or WiFi Manager:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.kman.WifiManager

It's free on Play and on my unrooted phone is able to do real-time scans

On Thursday, July 19, 2012 8:18:59 PM UTC+1, Josiah Bryan wrote:

(Disclaimer: I'm writing my app, below, using Necessitas/Qt - someone on the android-qt list suggested I post this question here. Just FYI)

In the vein of posts regarding doing stuff sans root - I'm working on a WiFi signal mapper (http://code.google.com/p/wifisigmap) as a hobby project, and it works fine on my rooted device. But, as you may know, a "normal" user can't actually trigger a scan (iwlist tiwlan0 scan just returns cached results from the last time the system did a scan itself.) - Yes, this is (roughly) on-topic:

Does anyone know a method for triggering a scan as a "normal" (non root) user? Either via some arcane linux system call, some odd android JNI trick, an Android Java API method, or on the far-off chance there's something buried in Qt that I've yet to discover...? I've googled for hours and hours on this topic (well, more focused on linux scan non root) and almost everything I find says it cant be done - there's no way to scan (trigger the wifi subsys to search for APs) as a non root user - but I know it must be possible - I've seen other apps do it, I just can't find out *how* they do it!

Feel free to smack me with a fish and tell me I'm an idiot or I've missed something obvious - I'm just reaching out on the list here as a "last straw." If I ever do actually market my app, I'd ideally like to be able to *not* have to say "Root-Only" but then again, a Wifi Signal Mapper isn't something the average grandmother-with-a-smartphone would use anyway. So maybe it's only of interest to rooted folks...who knows.

Thoughts from those wiser than I?

Cheers!