Related
I'm looking for a simple application that will run in the background, and send the current GSM/UTMS cell-id to a web server on a periodic basis (via HTTP GET).
Basically a program like cellGPS (http://www.vikinggames.hu/product.php?id=11) but for Windows Mobile. I don't really care about GPS info, since that just sucks power (and doesn't work indoors).
What I'm trying to do here is enable my home automation system to know where I am, without sucking my phone's battery to death (especially since GPS won't work indoors). GSM/UTMS cell-id is 'close enough' for me.
The application would just hit a webserver on my home machine with the current cell-id (http://webserver.com/receiver.php?cellid=4233-23) on a definable period. My own app on my webserver would record that data into a database. I can then go back and use that data to let my home auto system know "hey, Justin's almost home, turn on the HVAC, lights, etc".
It needs to be able to run in the background, no annoying icons on the screen, and start up on phone reset.
I figure since it's just sending the cell-id (which is always available), it would be rather efficient and not use much battery power (especially since I usually leave Activesync on "instant" so the data connection is usually up anyway).
Other extensions to this would let my server update twitter/facebook/etc with "Justin's at ... home/work/etc now.".
Any ideas?
wow this would be a great aplication
Two programs come to mind.... Comm Mgr Pro and rk-Location Switch.
I have not really played with these two programs much, but they do Cell tower based switching and might include some of the other features you require (but I do have to admit that they do not have all the features you want).
Dale Lane posted some c# code to programmatically get the cellID of the current tower.
The rest is pretty simple - a place to enter the url and then periodically issue HTTP GET requests.
I guess I could try to cook up something when I have some time.
Well I went and coded a sample app anyway. It just reads the current tower info at the specified interval. Is this the information that you require?
Just extract the zip to the device and run the .exe.
Note: It requires .NET Compact Framework 2.0
this sounds pretty cool. remember that cellid information is good for triangulating to about 1000 meters. you can get "justin's on his way home, turn on the AC" but probably not "justin's in the shower, begin youtube upload"
newb5000 said:
Well I went and coded a sample app anyway. It just reads the current tower info at the specified interval. Is this the information that you require?
Just extract the zip to the device and run the .exe.
Note: It requires .NET Compact Framework 2.0
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Works great! even though this topic was supposed to be on logging it to a web database, I am not too keen on that since data charges are expensive. I would be more interested in an internal database where I can simply attach a "friendly name", say the location of the site (ie. corner of main and first st.) to some cell sites (or a group of sites) in the internal database. Similar to what nicetrack used to do on previous WM versions. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=320055
newb5000 said:
Well I went and coded a sample app anyway. It just reads the current tower info at the specified interval. Is this the information that you require?
Just extract the zip to the device and run the .exe.
Note: It requires .NET Compact Framework 2.0
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will check as soon as I get my Kaiser back -- I managed to shatter the screen over the weekend. doh. This sounds EXACTLY like what I'm looking for.
Someone else mentioned data charges, which I don't care about, since I'm on unlimited data (AT&T won't even sell the things without the unlimited data plan now).
Actually, I still have my older TyTN somewhere. Let me dig it up and give this a try.
jasonchan said:
Works great! even though this topic was supposed to be on logging it to a web database, I am not too keen on that since data charges are expensive. I would be more interested in an internal database where I can simply attach a "friendly name", say the location of the site (ie. corner of main and first st.) to some cell sites (or a group of sites) in the internal database. Similar to what nicetrack used to do on previous WM versions. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=320055
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's a program that sort of does this now, called Trackme -- but it only does GPS as far as I know. Adding DB code would probably add a whole lot of complexity (and CPU power).
I'm sure it's doable, though, but I would hope it wouldn't be in this app. I have enough crap running in the background eating precious CPU cycles.
I wish I had a Windows machine to do development on. I'm Mac/Linux only, and don't have access to Visual Studio anymore.. I wrote an app to do this for the iPhone, but it can't run in the background due to SDK limitations. It's annoying that Microsoft hasn't made the WinMo SDK work on other platforms (although I guess Apple is doing that with the iPhone, so I don't have much room to talk).
The "goal" of this desired application is to be as lightweight as possible and offload all processing to a real computer. My phone doesn't need to do all of the work.
I can't imagine this would use much bandwidth, anyway. Even if you updated every five minutes, that's far less than 50kb per day, assuming a 64 byte URL + all HTTP and TCP headers. It'd add up to around 1.5 megabytes a month. I'd bet it'd be closer to 800-900kb/month. That's nothing compared to email/etc traffic. I would hope EU/etc carriers aren't so bad that 1.5mb a month would put you over a limit...
jasonchan said:
Works great! even though this topic was supposed to be on logging it to a web database, I am not too keen on that since data charges are expensive. I would be more interested in an internal database where I can simply attach a "friendly name", say the location of the site (ie. corner of main and first st.) to some cell sites (or a group of sites) in the internal database. Similar to what nicetrack used to do on previous WM versions. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=320055
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tested it yesterday when driving home from work. Tower changes were very frequent during my drive home. But lets say that a HTTP GET request (depending on the length of the URL) is on average 100 bytes. Lets say in a day you switch towers 200 times. That would result in just under 20 kilobytes of data usage in a day. I actually calculated this for myself because I also initially thought that one would get a large bill at the end of the month for data usage, but it would seem that this isn't the case.
One could also limit the web requests to only "bookmarked" Cell IDs.
I like the idea of the original poster even though I cannot see how I could use it personally, since I do not have a home automation system.
Regarding more friendly names - I remember that I had set it up on one of my first phones to receive cell broadcast messages from the towers which included the tower friendly name. Haven't tried since, though.
The data that is made available in Windows Mobile is the following:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa921533.aspx
Don't see any friendly names of towers though
I thought of adding a "bookmark" button so that one can bookmark the current Cell ID (and possibly assign a friendly name) but this would be very awkward while driving (and the frequent tower changes).
Google has a database with Cell IDs and uses them in Google Maps but good luck getting a copy of their database
norelidd said:
this sounds pretty cool. remember that cellid information is good for triangulating to about 1000 meters. you can get "justin's on his way home, turn on the AC" but probably not "justin's in the shower, begin youtube upload"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hah!
I only need 1000 meter resolution. GPS is definitely more accurate, but it would kill the battery in 6 hours flat.
Maybe when the third generation of GPS sats start going up in a few years, GPS receivers will use less power (since the sats will be much more powerful and supposedly will reach inside most buildings).. but that's 2015 at the earliest. Who knows what HTC/etc will come out with by then.
jmat said:
I will check as soon as I get my Kaiser back -- I managed to shatter the screen over the weekend. doh. This sounds EXACTLY like what I'm looking for.
Someone else mentioned data charges, which I don't care about, since I'm on unlimited data (AT&T won't even sell the things without the unlimited data plan now).
Actually, I still have my older TyTN somewhere. Let me dig it up and give this a try.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Only saw your post after I posted mine.
There aren't any web requests yet though, I just wanted to confirm that I was on the right track (through you testing it ). I'm willing to give it a bash because I'll learn something through the process.
Some questions arise:
Should the app dial a connection automatically, or just not send out requests if there is no active connection?
Still need to figure out how to get it to run in the background properly
I'm wondering how it should function if the phone is in standby
newb5000 said:
I tested it yesterday when driving home from work. Tower changes were very frequent during my drive home. But lets say that a HTTP GET request (depending on the length of the URL) is on average 100 bytes. Lets say in a day you switch towers 200 times. That would result in just under 20 kilobytes of data usage in a day. I actually calculated this for myself because I also initially thought that one would get a large bill at the end of the month for data usage, but it would seem that this isn't the case.
One could also limit the web requests to only "bookmarked" Cell IDs.
I like the idea of the original poster even though I cannot see how I could use it personally, since I do not have a home automation system.
Regarding more friendly names - I remember that I had set it up on one of my first phones to receive cell broadcast messages from the towers which included the tower friendly name. Haven't tried since, though.
The data that is made available in Windows Mobile is the following:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa921533.aspx
Don't see any friendly names of towers though
I thought of adding a "bookmark" button so that one can bookmark the current Cell ID (and possibly assign a friendly name) but this would be very awkward while driving (and the frequent tower changes).
Google has a database with Cell IDs and uses them in Google Maps but good luck getting a copy of their database
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tower switching will happen quite fast in big populated areas. That's why I was just going for every few minutes and not "as the tower changes".
It's too bad the towers don't "advertise" their GPS coordinates along with the other tower data. It seems like that would have been really easy to stick in the UMTS standard.
I'm surprised Google hasn't open sourced that database, or at least made an API library for it. Afterall, their users are the ones who discovered it all, not them -- Google Maps just records GPS coordinates + cell IDs and uploads them when you run the Google Maps location. I've seen that app upload several hundred kb during some runs.
Going back to the 'post on switch' thing. That might be a neat option -- to send a GET on every tower switch.. I'm going back and forth in my head on if that's a good idea or not. It'd be interesting to see how that hits battery life, though. (Since I have ActiveSync with "always push" enabled, I bet it doesn't make much of a difference).
First beta
Hi guys,
Apologies for the delay - I've been terribly busy.
I managed to create the app so it's ready for testing.
Attached is the cab file. The app consists of two components - the configuration utility and the service. The service is responsible for making the web requests and is launched at startup. You can use the configuration utility to adjust the settings as well as monitor what the service is doing.
The service will automatically dial your data connection when a web update is necessary, but it can also work via WiFi - although I don't see why you would use it via WiFi. It also supports websites that require Windows Authentication (Kerberos or NTLM should work, but do test it).
I think the app should be pretty self explanatory, but please do post if you have any questions or experience any problems.
FIY - the last error (if there is one) is stored in a log file located in:
Program Files\CellID Updater\cidlog.txt
Hope you like it!
EDIT: An update is available on the next page. I'm leaving this attachment as is just for reference purposes, but you should download the one on the next page.
CommMgrPro is creating a very big database automatically with operatorID-Cell/LAC-GPS coords sent (automatically) by the users (they can track their movements in realtime with googlemaps). Obviously GPS coords are only sent by GPS enabled devices. You can change the URL where the data is posted (HTTP GET) to point your site and I can give you a free license. Currently 3000 cells registed with gps coords and growing as the users moves....
Dani
newb5000 said:
Hi guys,
Apologies for the delay - I've been terribly busy.
I managed to create the app so it's ready for testing.
Attached is the cab file. The app consists of two components - the configuration utility and the service. The service is responsible for making the web requests and is launched at startup. You can use the configuration utility to adjust the settings as well as monitor what the service is doing.
The service will automatically dial your data connection when a web update is necessary, but it can also work via WiFi - although I don't see why you would use it via WiFi. It also supports websites that require Windows Authentication (Kerberos or NTLM should work, but do test it).
I think the app should be pretty self explanatory, but please do post if you have any questions or experience any problems.
FIY - the last error (if there is one) is stored in a log file located in:
Program Files\CellID Updater\cidlog.txt
Hope you like it!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey all - my first post.
I must say, it's outstandingly honorable that you share your skills with us. So good.. (haven't installed the tool yet, hope it's no virus or tv-on/off-switcher)
One question @jmat: How do you process the cellid once it is http'd to your server? Is there a webservice that maps cell-ids to gps?
Frouk
frouk said:
I must say, it's outstandingly honorable that you share your skills with us. So good.. (haven't installed the tool yet, hope it's no virus or tv-on/off-switcher)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks and no, it's not a virus / trojan / <insert something bad here>
One thing I forgot to mention is that if the device goes into standby, the service will be "paused". Then, when the device comes out of standby, the service will resume where it left off. I'm not sure whether this is acceptable behaviour for the app, but I considered the alternative - preventing the device from going into standby will drain the battery very quickly. So you would choose when the service should send out updates by taking your device out of standby.
Another thing: you can configure how often the service checks for a new tower and whether it should send out an update if the tower is different or the same since the last check.
I'm still wondering how I can put this app to good use, personally. I don't have a home automation system and I don't need to be tracked by anyone at home. Any ideas on what other uses this app could have?
newb5000 said:
Thanks and no, it's not a virus / trojan / <insert something bad here>
One thing I forgot to mention is that if the device goes into standby, the service will be "paused". Then, when the device comes out of standby, the service will resume where it left off. I'm not sure whether this is acceptable behaviour for the app, but I considered the alternative - preventing the device from going into standby will drain the battery very quickly. So you would choose when the service should send out updates by taking your device out of standby.
Another thing: you can configure how often the service checks for a new tower and whether it should send out an update if the tower is different or the same since the last check.
I'm still wondering how I can put this app to good use, personally. I don't have a home automation system and I don't need to be tracked by anyone at home. Any ideas on what other uses this app could have?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The configuration is just perfect - that way one can decide when to update just by letting the device go to sleep or not. Another thing: am I right that this app will never be as accurate as Google maps "my location"? It uses triangular approximation with more than one cell-id, right? I experienced it to be very accurate, even being on the train it exactly locates my position, amazing.
I personally intend to use such kind of app for reality/virtuality games where website visitors can track something or someone on the web and then go outside into the real world and do something or meet someone.
But jmats' idea is also amazing.
Cell name
Years ago I had Ericsson R320 (BTW great phone). It showed cell name e.g. "city centre" on the screen besides op name. I dug up my eric from the closet and this option still works. It would be great to have this as a today plugin Do you know something like that?
Handy Use of App
newb5000 said:
I'm still wondering how I can put this app to good use, personally. I don't have a home automation system and I don't need to be tracked by anyone at home. Any ideas on what other uses this app could have?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe you could mount a web server in your home pc (pretty simple) and track your device if it gets lost or stolen... It would be nice to recover your $700dlls phone right.
Don't know if anyone else has seen this yet (or cares), but since I love YouMail, I thought I'd post this up.
They have a link in this forum topic to download the .apk file, but since it says it's a closed beta, I'm not sure if you need to have YouMail allow your YouMail account to use the software.
LMK
http://api.youmail.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=15
Downloaded. It works pretty well. No option to save MP3 messages to SD. Uses polling, which can be a total pain in the ass, and kinda pointless for a voicemail system.
I actually started writing this app about a month ago, but the project manager(i assume) didn't really understand what I was talking about. I tried explaining to him that polling from the device is kinda a kludgy approach, and they should try and implement a different system. I even went so far as to writing a small server side program that would ping the device when there was new messages.
Here's the weird thing though, I sent him a long email one day asking him a bunch of questions about the hardware and software they're using for this system(so I can better design this software), and he never got back to me. THEN, a few weeks later(a month maybe) calls me asking how things are going.
Mind you, I hadn't signed any agreement with them, no deal was in place, and I do have other responsibilities. After a week or so I just assumed they were going with another developer. I assumed from the beginning that there were multiple people working on multiple apps, and they would just release the best one first. Oh well, that's my run-in with them.
Other than all of the above, the service itself is VERY useful. As far as the app is concerned, I think it's a great first-go, but it needs a little refinement. It's a bit slow, and scheduled server checks just isn't going to cut it. Why manually check my messages when I can have them deliver it in MP3 for to my email directly on my phone?
In anycase, good job whoever wrote the app!
I installed it and it shows my messages however it doesn't play anything. I click open and it just sits there. Im running cm 3.4 with hero 1.2, maybe thats why
How is this compared to PF Voicemail?
Probably not as cool as a dedicated app, but I:
1. Simply turn on email notifications on the youmail website with the option to attach an MP3 of the voicemail and send the emails to my gmail account
2. then I setup a filter in gmail to label all youmail messages with attachments to "YouMail"
3. I put a shortcut on my homescreen by "add shortcut" "Gmail label" "YouMail"
4. for good measure I tell the Android message settings to sync emails in the youmail folder for 4 days worth of voicemail in case I run into a problem with my network connection.
Instant Visual Voicemail with push.
wagz said:
Probably not as cool as a dedicated app, but I:
1. Simply turn on email notifications on the youmail website with the option to attach an MP3 of the voicemail and send the emails to my gmail account
2. then I setup a filter in gmail to label all youmail messages with attachments to "YouMail"
3. I put a shortcut on my homescreen by "add shortcut" "Gmail label" "YouMail"
4. for good measure I tell the Android message settings to sync emails in the youmail folder for 4 days worth of voicemail in case I run into a problem with my network connection.
Instant Visual Voicemail with push.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea, that's pretty much what I do too...I wish you could set it up to automatically download attachments though, especially since the beta app kinda sucks right now.
The app is in Open Beta now - feel free to download and try it out.
The only thing we (I) ask is that if you find any problems, or have any suggestions - either send us an email ([email protected]) or join in the discussion on the forums.
And yes, currently you need a free YouMail account in order to use the app. At some point you'll be able to sign up as part of the installation process, but that's in a later version.
YouMail for G1
Hi,
Could I please ask that you send *me* a private email with details about who at YouMail you were talking to? I'm the one responsible for the Android app and this is the first I have heard of someone contacting us regarding this app.
Regarding your comments about polling. We would absolutely ***love*** to push your voicemail to the phone similar to the way our Blackberry cousins get their email. Problem here is that in order to do that YouMail would need an interconnect agreement with T-Mobile (and other carriers) letting us use their push technology (yes, the G1 software does support push). The chances of T-Mobile (and other carriers) allowing that to happen are pretty much nil. (We all know that competition is bad... don't we?)
So, out of the box, what the Android app does is:
* Poll every hour to catch up on changes you may have made via the dial-in interface, or the web site (you can adjust it to be as often as every 15 mins, or as infrequent as 'never')
* Poll a couple of minutes after you miss a call - to see if the caller left you a message
* Poll when one of YouMail's special TXT messages arrives (the kind that start with "New VM:....")
* Manually initiated
That's the best approximation to push that we've been able to come up with considering the limitations. The drain on battery is actually remarkably low.
Of course, if you choose to receive your voicemails via email go for it!
I'll put a post up on the YouMail forums explaining battery usage.
Thanks
Doug
InGeNeTiCs said:
Downloaded. It works pretty well. No option to save MP3 messages to SD. Uses polling, which can be a total pain in the ass, and kinda pointless for a voicemail system.
I actually started writing this app about a month ago, but the project manager(i assume) didn't really understand what I was talking about. I tried explaining to him that polling from the device is kinda a kludgy approach, and they should try and implement a different system. I even went so far as to writing a small server side program that would ping the device when there was new messages.
Here's the weird thing though, I sent him a long email one day asking him a bunch of questions about the hardware and software they're using for this system(so I can better design this software), and he never got back to me. THEN, a few weeks later(a month maybe) calls me asking how things are going.
Mind you, I hadn't signed any agreement with them, no deal was in place, and I do have other responsibilities. After a week or so I just assumed they were going with another developer. I assumed from the beginning that there were multiple people working on multiple apps, and they would just release the best one first. Oh well, that's my run-in with them.
Other than all of the above, the service itself is VERY useful. As far as the app is concerned, I think it's a great first-go, but it needs a little refinement. It's a bit slow, and scheduled server checks just isn't going to cut it. Why manually check my messages when I can have them deliver it in MP3 for to my email directly on my phone?
In anycase, good job whoever wrote the app!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
mustang_52 said:
I installed it and it shows my messages however it doesn't play anything. I click open and it just sits there. Im running cm 3.4 with hero 1.2, maybe thats why
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you could send me some details I might be able to help.
The app downloads all message data via http.
Sistum Id said:
How is this compared to PF Voicemail?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is what I'm waiting to hear about before taking the plunge...
Left myself a message and I got the alert. I ran the app and then it says I have a message. I click on the number that was the caller and well nothing seems to happen. I see what appears to be a download button and across a phone/speaker.
Nothing seems to make any noise.
Also this app was in my recently ran apps tray so does this app start on phone turn on or do you have to manually start for the alerts. Also the polling is that to check for messages or to pull down the audio?
The reason I ask this stuff is there really isn't any discriptions of what does what and most apps appear to be straight forward.
Looks like I just got a text now saying I have a message. Thats what brings me to the polling. Does it poll every hour on top of the text message?
kizer said:
Also the polling is that to check for messages or to pull down the audio?
The reason I ask this stuff is there really isn't any discriptions of what does what and most apps appear to be straight forward.
Looks like I just got a text now saying I have a message. Thats what brings me to the polling. Does it poll every hour on top of the text message?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know if this is or isn't the info you're looking for, but this info was in the original post for somebody who seems to be working on the app...
ymDoug said:
So, out of the box, what the Android app does is:
* Poll every hour to catch up on changes you may have made via the dial-in interface, or the web site (you can adjust it to be as often as every 15 mins, or as infrequent as 'never')
* Poll a couple of minutes after you miss a call - to see if the caller left you a message
* Poll when one of YouMail's special TXT messages arrives (the kind that start with "New VM:....")
* Manually initiated
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Heh...finally an app is developing for YM I had posted here and even emailed a couple of devs and got nowhere. Even emailed YouMail and got the standard "not at this moment, there are no plans on supporting Android".
omario117 said:
I don't know if this is or isn't the info you're looking for, but this info was in the original post for somebody who seems to be working on the app...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So I"m blind and dumb. Thanks
Now if it only pulled down the audio it would be awesome. I guess thats why things are work in progress.
kizer said:
So I"m blind and dumb. Thanks
Now if it only pulled down the audio it would be awesome. I guess thats why things are work in progress.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Only if you're calling yourself that, I'm not calling you anything
If you did think I was, I apologize, I was simply trying to make the posting of my info seem credible, as opposed to "here's information but I'm not going to mention where I got it" or "look at the first post by such and such"...
I'd like to thank mustang_52 for getting back to me and helping figure out what was wrong. I believe the app is working correct for him now.
Just in case anyone is interested, there was a problem on one of the back-end servers where it wasn't creating the MP3 file that the app needs, so you were seeing "downloading" forever... we fixed it around noon today and everything seems to be AOK now.
There is a forum set up on the YouMail site that explains how the app checks for messages and the trade-offs we had to make since 'push' technology is effectively unavailable to us at present. (Unless of course we have some senior management from T-Mobile watching, and they want to contact me about making it available.........)
The forum is at: http://forums.youmail.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=8
Doug
Everything is working great since you fixed it. Thanks for such a great app.
Love this YouMail app... THANKS!!!
Hopefully this is ok to post here since it is a request for dream development. Sorry in advance if this belongs in Q/A or something.
The #1 thing I miss from my old Sanyo dumb-phone was the TTS ringer. When ever I received a call, my phone would:
"beeeep, incoming call from ([name] or "unknown-caller")"
I found this very handy as if my phone was out-of-pocket in my home, I could decide to get off the couch and get it or not without moving a muscle.
I have searched all over for the same basic TTS functionality in both WinMo and now Android but have not found anything.
Is it even possible within the Android system to use the TTS service to speak the contact name on incoming call instead of a ringer?
EDIT: And while I'm posting development requests, I would also like to see an app that lets you re-assign buttons (like vol+/- could page up and down unless there is sound playing, and the camera button which does nothing in Hero could be assigned to launch an app [HTC Camera] or even bring up a menu of apps to select from). They have lots of button programs for WinMo, but I've seen none for android.
I know winmo has this feature as my friend's old tilt had it.
There were a couple apps in the market that announced the name that called but they were not very good. IMO the current TTS in the market sucks, can't even understand it half the time.
I imagine someone could cobble together an application that could sense the ringtone call and hijack the audio, and then just use the TTS library to speak out the name / phone number, with "Incoming call from" prepended. I don't know if that's what the apps are doing. I don't see any apps like that on the market, either.
Search market for:
NameRinger
TalkingCallerID
voicecallerid
who is it
All have their problems. I think only voicecallerid is actually free.
What I did
This is what I did, its a hassle but works. went to
http://www.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php
typed the name of my contact downloaded and insert to sd and set as contact ring tone. yeah it suck but u can tweak it with different spelling to make it sound like the actual name. hope it helps
Here you go!
I tought I could do something back for the community so I started a new project =)
The only problem is that I have no visa to pay the registration fee to get this on the market.
I uploaded the apk to http://wilma.vub.ac.be/~lhoste/TTSNotifier.php (!UPDATED)
Based on the open source design of SMSPopup (thx!)
Speaks:
"Incoming call from <NAME>"
name = "unknown" if the number is not found in the contacts
can you start a google code page for this? im sure you can get some support and bug fixes from the community. maybe even one of the devs might upload to their account for you
upload the apk to somewhere else cause we cant access it
rpmccormick said:
Hopefully this is ok to post here since it is a request for dream development. Sorry in advance if this belongs in Q/A or something.
The #1 thing I miss from my old Sanyo dumb-phone was the TTS ringer. When ever I received a call, my phone would:
"beeeep, incoming call from ([name] or "unknown-caller")"
I found this very handy as if my phone was out-of-pocket in my home, I could decide to get off the couch and get it or not without moving a muscle.
I have searched all over for the same basic TTS functionality in both WinMo and now Android but have not found anything.
Is it even possible within the Android system to use the TTS service to speak the contact name on incoming call instead of a ringer?
EDIT: And while I'm posting development requests, I would also like to see an app that lets you re-assign buttons (like vol+/- could page up and down unless there is sound playing, and the camera button which does nothing in Hero could be assigned to launch an app [HTC Camera] or even bring up a menu of apps to select from). They have lots of button programs for WinMo, but I've seen none for android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My question to you is.. Why stop there?
My teacher once told me... "Why hope to make bridges made of sticks when you can dream of making bridges in the sky?"
Meaning... lets raise the bar.. lets dream bigger... So "Why stop there?"
You want TTS ringer... well I want TTS Notifications linked to any notification I enable.
ex. "Open home download completed", "you have 30 tweets", "USB connected", "You have a text message from XXX, Dictate?"
It may not have artificial intelligence.. but after how many years we have had technology and computers... couldn't we train it to be intelligent for us? You can train a dog to sit... so how come we can't program our phones to verbally say "Plug me in! Battery LOW!", "Open Wifi Signal in range", "So-n-So's birthday is today, bought them a gift?"
That does not require artificial intelligence right?
Why not bring Android toward "Fruition"
Damn... If I had the programming knowledge... I think I'd try this myself...
Sorry, link is fixed now
gho0o5t said:
My question to you is.. Why stop there?
My teacher once told me... "Why hope to make bridges made of sticks when you can dream of making bridges in the sky?"
Meaning... lets raise the bar.. lets dream bigger... So "Why stop there?"
You want TTS ringer... well I want TTS Notifications linked to any notification I enable.
ex. "Open home download completed", "you have 30 tweets", "USB connected", "You have a text message from XXX, Dictate?"
It may not have artificial intelligence.. but after how many years we have had technology and computers... couldn't we train it to be intelligent for us? You can train a dog to sit... so how come we can't program our phones to verbally say "Plug me in! Battery LOW!", "Open Wifi Signal in range", "So-n-So's birthday is today, bought them a gift?"
That does not require artificial intelligence right?
Why not bring Android toward "Fruition"
Damn... If I had the programming knowledge... I think I'd try this myself...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Keep posting your great ideas. Everyone has a different view on how to make this easier so if we all combine that we can make something great.
I think the usb connected, sms, battery, wifi, birthday is possible. Ill try to extend the app today and open a github.
You can also start making up sentences the phone has to speak because hearing the same stuff all the time makes it boring.
Zillode said:
I tought I could do something back for the community so I started a new project =)
The only problem is that I have no visa to pay the registration fee to get this on the market.
I uploaded the apk to http://wilma.vub.ac.be/~lhoste/TTSRingtone.php
Based on the open source design of SMSPopup (thx!)
Speaks:
"Incoming call from <NAME>"
name = "unknown" if the number is not found in the contacts
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Click to collapse
It's probably down to stupidity on my part, but how does the app work?
it installs fine but then it doesn't seem to do anything when someone rings, it just plays my ringtone.
also, does this work on Hero? that could be my problem.
cheers for making this app btw, been looking for something like this for a long time
Meltus said:
It's probably down to stupidity on my part, but how does the app work?
it installs fine but then it doesn't seem to do anything when someone rings, it just plays my ringtone.
also, does this work on Hero? that could be my problem.
cheers for making this app btw, been looking for something like this for a long time
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should have the TTS Service installed (search for it in the market). When receiving a change in ACTION_PHONE_STATE, it starts a services that takes care of the speech.
Do mind that your 'Media' volume is about equally high as your ringtone volume.
Zillode said:
You should have the TTS Service installed (search for it in the market). When receiving a change in ACTION_PHONE_STATE, it starts a services that takes care of the speech.
Do mind that your 'Media' volume is about equally high as your ringtone volume.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah i've got that. Do i need to mess with the settings in it or anything? still just getting my normal ringtone playing.
I had a similar problem. I had to uninstall the TTSRingtone.apk (system/sd/vub.lhoste.ttsringtone.apk), re-install the TTS library (Text To Speech Service on the market) and then re-install the TTSRingtone.apk. After all of this was done, it started working on its own.
Nifty.
new build (and projectname)
Ok, I started to make the TTS notification more global. This means we will try to support more and more.
You can find the new build at:
http://wilma.vub.ac.be/~lhoste/TTSNotifier.php
NOTE: UNINSTALL THE OLD (TTSRingtone!) BEFORE INSTALLING THIS ONE.
I started a new thread so the intrested ppl can follow the changes
-> http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=4376431
rpmccormick said:
EDIT: And while I'm posting development requests, I would also like to see an app that lets you re-assign buttons (like vol+/- could page up and down unless there is sound playing, and the camera button which does nothing in Hero could be assigned to launch an app [HTC Camera] or even bring up a menu of apps to select from). They have lots of button programs for WinMo, but I've seen none for android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know if it's possible to 'unbind' the vol +/- key.. any1 has an idea?
It is possible to use the same structure as TTSNotifier or SMSPopup to capture the cam button press, but since I'm running the cyanogenmod it is occupied and useless to start a 2nd app
Hi you all out there,
since I was searching for application ideas I read about the wish for a call firewall again and again.
I decided to think about it and now here it is:
CallWall - The Call Firewall
It's an application which provides a service which directly blocks incoming calls by matching them with some user creatable filters.
Current filters are:
- Simple filter (a la *1337* to block all numbers with 1337 in it)
- Regex filter (a la .*1337.*)
- Contact filter blocks a single contact
- Contact group filter blocks a hole group of contacts
- Unknown number filter blocks all calls with an unknown caller ID
The calls can be blocked (same as clicking the hangup button directly) or just be muted.
I had to compile the app against the source and not the SDK - only for the hangup thing which is ~4 lines of code, all other things are SDK stuff. It installs and runs without problems in the emulator, so I think not-rooted-phones should be able to use it, too.
Please post comments and bug thing here
Have fun with it, hope you like it.
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v1.0.1 - 26-08
-Added notifications for blocked calls and an ongoing notification while the service is started & active. All of them can be switched off in the settings.
------
Source code available at my git repository.
Could you add a screening feature like "You Have Reached " I had it on my Sanyo 500 years ago and I could pick up in the middle of them leaving a message. Well I think it would be cool if its possible THx
irrenhaus at it again
nice work man
can't wait to see what you add on to this
It didn't work for me...
All the calls still got through..
AustinKnight45 said:
Could you add a screening feature like "You Have Reached " I had it on my Sanyo 500 years ago and I could pick up in the middle of them leaving a message. Well I think it would be cool if its possible THx
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yah, I thought about an answering machine on the phone which gives you the possibility to record an answer text and which records onto the sd card. But that will maybe come somewhen in the future
Mh could you give information about your configured filters?
I could only test it on my phone and the emulator...
Thanks
irrenhaus said:
Yah, I thought about an answering machine on the phone which gives you the possibility to record an answer text and which records onto the sd card. But that will maybe come somewhen in the future
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well these features are some what there.. I have them with google voice it saves all my voice mails (even transcribes them too) and it saves my text.. And I can screen my calls I can listen to there voicemail and if i wanna pick up I just do so... so in some sense it is a answering machine. oh and the cool part if some one calls you from an unknown number they cant get through they have to first leave there name and number.. Well thats the way i have it setup anyways
tried out some of the features and working well on my part awesome work again
We already have an ignore option on the phone im not trying to put this down but how is this any different?
imbonez9 said:
We already have an ignore option on the phone im not trying to put this down but how is this any different?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I think this piece of work is just more - lets say advanced
To say the truth, I think if the original functions do it for you there is no need for this app. Also the only reason I've made this is that I heard many voices screaming for an app like this - so I decided to code it .
All the power to you in no way was i hating just asking to find out more about this
^^ I think the original way to ignore a call just lets you ignore specific contacts.
The CallWall lets you additionaly ignore unknown numbers, hole user groups and numbers by pattern... And I'm currently adding different notification things so you know that a call was blocked ^^
Well I think that's all about it...
I think this thread needs to go to "Dream applications and games" and not in the Android Dev. forum....
Like the app though, could be very useful.
Stericson
Ah well yah sorry about that, reading so much the dev forum that I didn't think of the other ones xD
great idea
I really like this idea and like the overall layout. Good work!
Call and Text blocking...
I'd love an App that let's me block text and calls from a certain number, but not only blocks them, but let's them know in no uncertain terms that I've blocked them!! Like on texts, it would send an auto-response to the number saying something like "the T-Mobile customer you are messaging has blocked this number xxx-xxx-xxxx. No messages sent will be received." or something.
suggestion
hey irrenhaus,
a feature that i dont think would be too hard to implement, is a filter where you block out everyone EXCEPT for a specific group/contact ... for example, when im at certain places, i would like to put everyone to mute except for my family... what do you think?
EDIT: i had another idea but forgot it so will edit this when i remember
I think this is great. I am tired of hitting the ignore button. I would rather the phone just mute itself and i don't even have to pay attention to it. With his feature, you don't ahve to look at the phone and touch something. This is aces above "your hitting the end button". Nice work!
I had a great app like this on my window mobile phone, except it had the option to answer the call and hang up, so the caller couldn't leave a voice mail.
Then it would send them a SMS stating they had been blocked, and if they replied via SMS the sms's were automatically deleted.
Also, it did this behind the scenes so you didn't get any notification(missed called, or sms, ringtones).
Was a really great app!...
parrothd said:
I had a great app like this on my window mobile phone, except it had the option to answer the call and hang up, so the caller couldn't leave a voice mail.
Then it would send them a SMS stating they had been blocked, and if they replied via SMS the sms's were automatically deleted.
Also, it did this behind the scenes so you didn't get any notification(missed called, or sms, ringtones).
Was a really great app!...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
do you rememer the app?
So, I found the setting that reads to me who is calling.
So, for instance if Jesse Pinkman calls me, my phone will say "Jesse Pinkman" and then ring.
If it is not in my contact list, it will read the number.
But it only does it once.
I remember on some of my older phones, it would actually say who was calling, you would get the ring, say who was calling, get the ring, and repeat until VM picks up or I pick up.
I am looking for a way to do this again. If not available, is there an APP that will do this?
The reason I am doing this is because I have bluetooth on my helmet, and when I am riding I only want to pick up for certain callers.
On my phone, it is found under
Settings >> Accessibility>> Screen Reader>> Settings >>Read caller ID aloud
I simply did a search for "aloud" in Settings.
For anyone still looking for an answer: Samsung has made it difficult (on Oreo) to enable the function without the accessibility settings that call out every action you do. It has been integrated well in Pie under call settings. However, if you don't like Pie, like me, there's only one app that I found to actually do it very well. Its called Who's Calling. Get it from PlayStore. I have tested more than 20 apps and nothing does it better. I haven't even seen a single ad from it. Hope this saves someone time.
Cheers