

Turn WiFi and Bluetooth signals into app actions - ggdm
http://www.newaer.com/developers
NewAer wants to make the Siri reminders &#38; 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.
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buster
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/>

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tdj
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 :)

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diminoten
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.

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w1ntermute
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.

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srini
I use NFC Task Launcher to do exactly this.

Link:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jwsoft.nfc...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jwsoft.nfcactionlauncher&hl=en)

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andrewtbham
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...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/onsite-time-
tracker/id470803110?mt=8)

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nathanstitt
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.

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andrewtbham
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).

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ggdm
Significant location change is clumsy to say the least. If you ask Siri to
"remind you to get milk when you leave the house" you can see she sends
messages at all different ranges of your leaving. Our engine monitors BTLE for
disconnected, or WiFi zones for connected on iOS. Plus we provide background
operation in iOS. Let us know what you think of the SDK in your application.

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zmmmmm
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.

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tdj
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.

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ggdm
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.

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buildnship
<https://www.gimbal.com/>

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kelnos
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.

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ggdm
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-...](http://gigaom.com/2013/01/11/video-qualcomms-project-gimbal-gives-
your-phone-contextual-smarts/)

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abava
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.

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omarseyal
what's the killer use case for this api?

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ggdm
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.

