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SBrick Android App

  • May 19, 2015 9:21 PM CEST

    ''Hello. I need your help. I didn`t uprade my SBrick in v 1.0 . Now i have v1.4 but i can`t still uprade! And now I have problems with discovering... after discovering the app is crashing. So, what should i do?''

    • 99 posts
    May 17, 2015 11:14 PM CEST

    Showing a battery status would require having a sensor in the battery box, capable of sending the status to the receiver. I don't think Lego has ever thought about that...

    v1.4 still in test here. Works much better than the older versions for sure, but these display issues are really annoying when you try to design a new profile!!!

    Another point that was not raised yet. All tablets owners probably know this point.

    Some screens are displayed with the current orientation (landscape or portrait), while others are forced in portrait mode. It's probably fine when you use a smartphone and let the automatic screen rotation on, it's a problem with tablets.

    Landscape being more natural with a tablet, and automatic rotation being rather irritating, you may have disabled the automatic screen rotation.

    With the Sbrick Android app, the screen changes orientation whenever you switch from one screen to another: really, really irritating.

    All the app screens must use the current screen system orientation, forcing a screen in portrait mode is a mistake.

    • 7 posts
    May 17, 2015 8:17 PM CEST

    Hello Community, SBrick-Team,
    where you will find in the Android App, the display for the battery status of the Lego Battery Box?
    Thank you for a message.

    Klaus

    • 340 posts
    May 17, 2015 12:17 PM CEST

    [blockquote]Gábor Fehér said:

    [blockquote]tim tam said:

    Oops........so,what can i do?please advise thank you for help

    [/blockquote]

    I have no idea :(
    I'm not even sure if I'm right. I just saw that that both my firefox (on PC) and chrome (on phone) said that the certificate has expired. I think the android system doesn't allow the Sbrick app to connect the website. Maybe someone can confirm my theory.

    [/blockquote]

    Yes, you are right! The certification is expired. We are working on it!

    • 4 posts
    May 17, 2015 11:36 AM CEST

    [blockquote]tim tam said:

    Oops........so,what can i do?please advise thank you for help

    [/blockquote]

    I have no idea :(
    I'm not even sure if I'm right. I just saw that that both my firefox (on PC) and chrome (on phone) said that the certificate has expired. I think the android system doesn't allow the Sbrick app to connect the website. Maybe someone can confirm my theory.


    This post was edited by Gábor Fehér at May 17, 2015 11:36 AM CEST
    • 10 posts
    May 17, 2015 11:16 AM CEST

    Oops........so,what can i do?please advise thank you for help

    • 4 posts
    May 17, 2015 11:14 AM CEST

    I think the website's certificate has expired.

    • 10 posts
    May 17, 2015 11:05 AM CEST

    i updated to v1.4 on my samsung note2 but can not log-in to market and can not do anything. what can i do now? please help!

    it keep shown "communication error , no peer certificate"


    This post was edited by tim tam at May 17, 2015 11:14 AM CEST
    • 99 posts
    May 17, 2015 3:04 AM CEST

    [blockquote]Denis H said:

    I have this problem.....when i asign a custom profile with a PNG (i don't test JPEG images yet) for the background. The image looks ok in the profile designer and if i look in the Gallery in the phone also looks ok.....but in the sbrick app when i use the profile the colors looks strange, specially the black....looks wash out...with some spot in differents color....like a image with less palette of colors. This also happens in the 1.3 version.

    [/blockquote]

     

    Exactly what I had with my Galaxy Note 10.1 with a dark picture: PNG or JPG conversion is not what it should be.

    v1.4 is a great improvement: looks more stable than the previous versions, and several issues were solved.

    My key concern - considering I have one Sbrick only - is the display management : coordinates, sizes, and colors are messed up.

  • May 16, 2015 10:54 PM CEST

    What does that mean again?
    Pairing with SBrick has not been possible because the PIN entered or the key is incorrect.

     

    • 95 posts
    May 16, 2015 6:20 PM CEST

    It will be great if the app can disable the standby mode of the phone or tablet

    Thank you

     

    • 95 posts
    May 16, 2015 6:16 PM CEST

    [blockquote]thomas glaser said:

    Hello!

    I create two profiles but i can´t see them at the market in my profiles, so i can´t download them to my phone.

    [/blockquote]

     

    You need to create a profile with the screen ratio of your phone

    • 1 posts
    May 16, 2015 4:01 PM CEST

    Hello!

    I create two profiles but i can´t see them at the market in my profiles, so i can´t download them to my phone.

     

    How can i change direction of the PF in one of the "All Profiles"?

    • 41 posts
    May 16, 2015 2:29 PM CEST

    Just tested the 1.4 version + Samsung Galaxy S3......now works better. Now the re-connect screen that appear in the 1.3 version now disappear (at least in the 10 min i test) and i only have 1 crash.

    I have this problem.....when i asign a custom profile with a PNG (i don't test JPEG images yet) for the background. The image looks ok in the profile designer and if i look in the Gallery in the phone also looks ok.....but in the sbrick app when i use the profile the colors looks strange, specially the black....looks wash out...with some spot in differents color....like a image with less palette of colors. This also happens in the 1.3 version.

     

    image in profile designer:

    http://postimg.org/image/ilw7wmlgr/

     

    image in sbrick app:

     http://postimg.org/image/5vrzjjdij/

     

     

    Edit: I just change the link for the images....was upside down. Now is ok.


    This post was edited by Denis H at May 17, 2015 12:17 AM CEST
  • May 16, 2015 1:39 PM CEST

    Hi

    I have installed the version 1.4. Now i can enter a Profile in one of my creations. But i can't assing de Chanels in the Profil. There are no chanels displayed.

    I cleard the cache and downloaded it again. but no way to assing the Chanels to the Ports.

    • 57 posts
    May 16, 2015 1:29 AM CEST

    Thanks for the heads up Frederic!
    Didn't have notice the change.


    Just made a quick test and it seems another steep in the good direction.


    The changes that I've noticed:

    - Indication of the brick Firmware (written Software) and Hardware versions while assigning functions to ports in My Creatins definition.
      This information is although not visible in Manage Bricks where it should primarly be.

    - Rotated Sliders and Joysticks are now working.  I think default motor directions are reversed in the Joystick control type though. Work around can be easily applied with port inversion.

    - I feel the app now takes longer in average to find all the SBricks switched on. Maybe to make it more robust and connecting to more devices!?


    What I still miss:

    - Profiles still appear siginificantly deformed at smartphone display. In particular the circular forms like the Joysticks.
      It looks really weird and wish we could see this fixed really soon, depite it is a purely aesthetics aspect.


    Kudos!
    Fernando


    This post was edited by Fernando Correia at May 16, 2015 1:30 AM CEST
    • 95 posts
    May 15, 2015 10:35 PM CEST
    just found v1.4 available on the play store (i did not test it yet)
  • May 15, 2015 6:25 PM CEST

    Hi

    I Updated my Sony Z1 compact to Android Version 5.0.2 and the sbrick to version 1.3. Then i updated my two sbricks with the new firmware successfully.

    Now i can't use My Creations anymore. I can enter to configure my creations to add my profiles, which will not be saved.

    the only way to use my sbricks is, with the Port tester in Manage Bricks.

    I am now very satisfied with this software. I hope it will get better soon. 

    • 2 posts
    May 15, 2015 11:40 AM CEST

    [blockquote]Bernd Gruener said:

    Today i did a successful firmware update with a windows phone Lumia 930, but before and after i can't add a profile. Nothing happens.

    [/blockquote]

    Do you mean you can't add profile on the windows phone app? If yes, could you describe what you do step by step, and what happens?

    • 4 posts
    May 14, 2015 12:31 AM CEST

    Some days ago i wrote that i'am not able to add a sbrick to my moc because every time i got the update message. I did the update several times without errors, turn off and on bluetooth as recommended but it was only apparently successful. So the app was total unusable, because i can't skip the update message.

    Today i did a successful firmware update with a windows phone Lumia 930, but before and after i can't add a profile. Nothing happens.

    But now it seems the sbrick can be used with the android app 1.3. Some tests were successful.While no reliable working app for non ios devices exist, i have to say: scrap


    This post was edited by Bernd Gruener at May 14, 2015 12:32 AM CEST
    • 57 posts
    May 14, 2015 12:14 AM CEST

    Just upgraded my Samsung Galaxy Note Edge to Lollipop (5.01).

    I was affraid it was going to stop working... but I glad it looks it now working even better.

     

    Didn't experience any disconnect/reconnect so far, which were quite frequent with 4.4.4.

    Tested with 3 SBricks visible simultaneously and interacting with 2 of them in the same model or 1 in another model.

     

    Kudos!

    Now I just want the profiles to look a bit better on Android. :)


    This post was edited by Fernando Correia at May 14, 2015 12:26 AM CEST
    • 9 posts
    May 13, 2015 9:36 AM CEST

    Hi,

    I finally got some time to test the newest version of the Android App.

    Happy to say I was able to control my simple MOC without any problems.

    I was only using a Buggy Motor for drive and an M Motor for steering, but it all worked fine, first time, with no crashes.

    Cheers.

    • 23 posts
    May 12, 2015 10:25 AM CEST

    Congratulations, the v1.3 App finally works. I was able to update the Firmware of my SBricks to V4.2

    And I was able to successfully controll the Ultimate 8043-S excavator with 2 SBricks using my custom "Jurgens Excavator" profile.

    I will test it with the Link Belt 250X3 excavator and the Ultimate 42009-S mobile crane next.

    It currently evn works better than the iOS-app (in which I can't update the firmware and the profile can't connect to the S-Bricks.)

    The one thing I noticed is that sometimes old and new screens overlap: the old screen isn't completely removed, and the new screen is displayed over it with a bit of transparancy.

    Using Sony Z3 Compact, Android 4.4.4


    This post was edited by Jurgen Krooshoop at May 12, 2015 10:26 AM CEST
  • May 12, 2015 2:21 AM CEST

    [blockquote]Zsolt Majoros said:

    @Philipp connecting works, but when I want to send the first packet to control characteristic works fine (with slider move), but 1-2 second later it disconnects, and have to disconnect-connect again.

    [/blockquote]

    Hi,

    i did some fixes on my test-app.
    as you said, that it disconnected using the sliders,
    would you please so kind, to test this new version.
    Thx a lot.

    http://sbrick.hosticus.com/SBrick5.apk

    • 99 posts
    May 11, 2015 9:17 PM CEST

    [blockquote]Lénárd Pásztor said:

    Guys, if anybody has problems with the android app please edit the wiki here: https://social.sbrick.com/wiki/view/pageId/12/slug/application-device-compatibility

    [/blockquote]

    Done

    [blockquote]Lénárd Pásztor said:

     

    It is a really hard way to get all android devices to work with SBrick. It seems the BLE stack on android very crappy and works different ways in different devices.

     

    [/blockquote]

    Sure, and nobody can blame you for that: we know what we don't want when we don't want to use Apple stuff, but we also know what we don't get with Android. Android is not a mature universe, but it has more qualities than defaults and is usually enough for personal usage.

    Anyway :

    1) Did you consider using another development environment ? Did you benchmark your app with other BLE android apps and investigate about the tools they use ?

    2) The main issues I have are 1) display issues 2) basic screen design/sequences issues. These issues are programming concerns, not BLE handling concerns ;)