Turn WiFi and Bluetooth signals into app actions

http://www.newaer.com/developers

by ggdm • 13 years ago

36 24 13 years ago

NewAer wants to make the Siri reminders & GPS location based triggers obsolete with a software SDK to use radios in smartphones as app triggers. They just launched their new Android and iOS SDK for the Techcrunch Disrupt hackathon, and have a pretty funny example video posted. Nick's life is pretty sweet! LOL.

buildnship• 13 years ago

https://www.gimbal.com/

kelnos• 13 years ago

So? Please add something to the discussion rather than just pasting a link to a competitor. What does Gimbal do that's different/better/etc.? Genuinely curious.

diminoten3• 13 years ago

If only there were a handy link available! :P

ggdm5• 13 years ago

Agreed. I've seen several demos of Gimbal and I fail to see how GPS and Google Goggles differs from this. GigaOm has a video demo: http://gigaom.com/2013/01/11/video-qualcomms-project-gimbal-...

diminoten3• 13 years ago

I use Android's tasker to put my phone on vibrate when my work WiFi is detected, it's pretty convenient.

Putting features like that into other apps would be fantastic.

w1ntermute• 13 years ago

You can also do this using NFC. Not sure if this is possible with Tasker, but (for example) you could have a car dock with a passive NFC tag (very cheap) on it that would change the phone to automatically read your text messages out loud and prompt you to respond with voice input.

srini• 13 years ago

I use NFC Task Launcher to do exactly this.

Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jwsoft.nfc...

diminoten3• 13 years ago

For my specific car I can detect the Bluetooth connection using tasker, without the need for the NFC chip.

I don't mean to turn this into an, "Isn't Tasker great?" rave, but... isn't it?

anoncow• 13 years ago

Handy Profiles did something similar for symbian using cell tower id.

ggdm5• 13 years ago

This is the concept for the engine, we are glad you "got it." Although you can add it into Tasker too. The bigger picture is that you do not need to be connected to the WiFi or BT radio to enable this.

omarseyal• 13 years ago

what's the killer use case for this api?

ggdm5• 13 years ago

Isn't this for you to answer? NewAer builds "showcase apps" but the SDK is for all to build on. Our favorite is a menu on a tablet that knows what you ordered last time you visited the restaurant and suggests something new the 2nd visit. All with your phone in your purse or pocket. No check ins, QR codes, tapping NFC or logging in. That's the vision of the SDK.

andrewtbham2• 13 years ago

iOs has a featured called region monitoring that is similar.

I use it in my app OnSite Time Tracker.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/onsite-time-tracker/id470803...

nathanstitt2• 13 years ago

How's that working out for you?

I've written a similar (open-source) app called Remindly (https://github.com/nathanstitt/remindly) that uses region monitoring to fire alarms.

I've found it's region monitoring accuracy to be horrid - either the alarms fire when I haven't moved, don't fire at all, or fire an hour later when I'm 20 miles outside the region.

Since I have the same issues with the built-in Reminders app, I suspect it's something specific to my geographical area, or the api is just rubbish.

andrewtbham2• 13 years ago

In ios 4 it was accuracy was miles. As of ios 5, it's usually accurate to within a block. but it's not accurate in desolate areas (due to lack of wifi signals).

abava• 13 years ago

And does it work for iPhone too? non-rooted? We did such stuff as SpotEx: http://spotex.linkstore.ru But Wi-Fi scan on iPhone was a problem.

tdj2• 13 years ago

I developed a similar app for a psychology research team. They needed a way to trigger certain things (sound recording, etc) when two certain people were in physical proximity. As it turns out, bluetooth bonjour discovery did the trick when they were in the same room. Over wifi, it got triggered sooner, once one of them enterred the building where the other one was (which corresponded to being on the same LAN).

The hard problem on iOS devices (iPod touch) was keeping them awake during this, so they could detect eac other. iOS likes to sleep while locked. Got a solution, which made the battery last around a day. I guess they're not using mobile to mobile peer triggers, but fixed-to-mobile and then deliver a notification. Interesting to see this popping up in commercial tech.

I was going to spin my code out into a infrastructure for spatial awareness triggers for various home automation tasks, but also couldn't find a killer use case. I'll be following this topic for ideas :)

buster• 13 years ago

Is this a joke? I remember this kind of application has been available for android since the G1, in fact when Google hosted some app contest to have some apps available on the launch of android one of the winners was that kind. That was 2008: https://developers.google.com/android/adc/adc_gallery/

zmmmmm• 13 years ago

I'm curious how this works on iOS in the background? I admittedly don't know that much about it, but my understanding was that apps basically couldn't run code that constantly monitored things like this in the background on iOS.

jamesRaybould• 13 years ago

I'm also curious how they got the wifi scanning working on iOS, last time I looked at doing it myself Apple had moved/removed the private library in iOS5.

tdj2• 13 years ago

I solved this by using the "Insomniac" approach - if you play a silent sound every 30 seconds or so, the scheduler will reset the sleep timer and the app will keep working. It drains the battery in around 1 day though.

ggdm5• 13 years ago

Love the idea of the silent sound. Alas, that and the IP backgrounding is a bit clumsy. We pass through Apple's store guidelines without powering up the GPS.

nathanstitt2• 13 years ago

It's my understanding that they can do so if they identify as a navigation app. It's hit-or-miss as to whether that will pass scrutiny by the app store reviewer though.

Turn WiFi and Bluetooth signals into app actions

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