I have 2 android phones phones, both connected to the same wifi, both with bluetooth.
I want some method that syncs somehow the phones and starts a function on the same time on both phones.
For example playing a song at the same time.
I already tried with bluetooth but its with lag, sometimes 0.5 secs. I want something in +- 0.01sec if possible.
Someone suggesting playing it in the future with 2-3 seconds, sending the time-stamp, but how do you sync the internal clocks of the devices then ?
Before calling that particular method, try to measure the latency between the two devices:
1.First device says Hi(store the current time)
2.Second device receives the Hi.
3.Second device says back Hi !!
4.First device receives the Hi.((storedTime - currentTime) / 2 )
Now you have the latency, send your request to second device to start your particular method and start it on first one after the latency.
Try to measure the latency 5 to 10 times to be more accurate.
you have a way to transfer data between the devices right ?
if so you can send a time-stamp which is in the future,
ex: if the present time stamp is 1421242326 you send 1421242329 or something and start the function at that time on both devices.
Basically use #Dula's suggestion (device 1 sends command to device 2 and gives a "start time" which lies in the future). Both devices then start the action at the same time (in the future).
To make sure that the devices are synchronized, you can use a server-based time sync (assuming that both devices have Internet access). To do this, each device contacts the same server (using NTP, or HTTP-based NTP, or contacts a known HTTP server, like www.google.com and uses the value in the "Date" header of the HTTP response). The "server-date" is compared to the system clock on the device, and the difference is the "time-offset from server-time". The time-offsets can be used to synchronize on the "server-time", which is then used as the time base for the actual action (playing the media, etc.).
If your WiFi router allows clients to talk to each other (many public hotspots disable this), you could implement a simple socket listener on one (or each) device and have the initiating device broadcast a message.
For more complicated things and network flexibility, I've had good success with connected sessions using AllJoin. There is a bit of a learning curve to do interesting things, but the simple stuff is pretty easy once you understand the architecture.
Use a server to provide a synchronous event to just the two clients who have decclared their mutual affinity (random as a parm and pair serializer Partner-1 or Partner-2 which they share prior to their respectve calls for the sync event).
Assume both clients on same subnet (packets from 2 events serialized on the server , arrive across the network at the 2 clients simultaneously client-side) This provides synchronous PLays by 2 , bound clients.
The event delivered by server is either a confirm to play queued selected track OR a broadcast( decoupled, more formal)
The only tricky thing is the server side algorythm implementing this:
Queue a pair of requests or error
Part1, part2 with same Random value constitute valid pair if both received before either times out.
On a valid pair schedule both to the same future event in their respective , committed responses.
OnSchedule do the actual IO for 2 paired requests. Respective packets will arrive back at respective clients at same time, each response having been subject to equal network latency
Ng if two diff carrier 4G or lte networks involved. (Oops)
This thing is possible via socket, you will send a event via socket then the other device receive that event. For learn socket io chat
maybe it's not the answer you are looking for but i think that due to the high precision you are wanting , you should look for a push technology, i advice you to take look at SignalR. It's real time technology which gives you abstraction of sending methods , it have a built-in methods like Clients.All.Broadcast that fit your needs.
You can try to use some MQTT framework to send message between two device, or into a set with more number of devices.
Related
I have an Arduino and an Android app which are communicating to each other via ethernet. The arduino shows a very simple webpage with only some values and an ID as seen below.
$1$201 //Value 1 ($1$): Temperature 20.1 degrees
$2$66 //Value 1 ($2$): Humidity 66%
$2$1 //Value 2 ($2$): Heating relay is on (1)
etc. up to 50 values
The Android app will read the data from this webpage as a string using a HTTP get request, filters the data and shows the values on a custom made screen. It is also possible to send some data to the arduino to change some settings or switch a relay or something. You can see is as some kind of thermostat. So far so good.
The "problem" is that I need to manualy update the data using a button. The question is: How can I update my values automatically?
I was thinking to just send a httpRequest every few seconds (polling), but I'm not sure if this is the way to go because it seems to use of lot of data.
Who can advise me what would be a good solution?
Regards,
Bas
The 'best' choice here will depend on your goals. Polling is easy to implement on the client (android) side. You could experiment with the optimal polling time depending on how 'fresh' your data needs to be compared to how much data you want your app to use. Alternatively, you could find or implement an http socket server such as ArduinoWebsocketServer, keeping in mind that the processor in your Arduino may or may not have the power needed to run this.
I'm working on a project which using bluetooth to send two bytes data to HC-05 module and receive from it. Everything is going well but there's one thing that I can't bear with, which is stated below.
I use System.currentTimeMills() to get the time interval between sending data and receiving ,and it takes no more than 1ms`` to detect whether there's data in the buffer ofinputStream. However, it takes about30~200msto readtwo bytesof data from thebluetooth` chip on my cell phone.
Dose anyone know how to reduce the time ? Or it's insolvable?
The primary bottleneck should be the protocol scheduling. I don't know how this particular module works, but in Bluetooth in general you have to wait for your timeslot to send or receive.
Suggestions:
Check if you can send more than 2 bytes at the time. The read time is stable, but you get more data transmitted each time.
Check if the API gives you scheduling options, so the wait time goes down.
For your use case I think things would be simpler with Bluetooth low energy (BLE). You will need another module, but IMO it is worth it.
People! I thought to include it in original question but didn't.
WHILE VOTING, YOU ARE ALLOWED TO COMMENT WHY DID YOU VOTE?
Please use it to enable learners get theirs things done and convey their thoughts/issues to others better way. Not everyone knows what you think. Thanks
In Short:
I need to synchronize clocks of two Android Phones (placed close to each other OR not; both cases) with each other AND with up to an accuracy of a few milliseconds (10, 20 ms max).
Either sync the clocks
Or get an offset of one from the other
What I am Doing:
I have a developed app that I am using to measure different GSM network statistics. I am using telephony manager to get three states (OFF-HOOK, IDLE, RINGING). Phone A calls phone B. Both phones are running an app that is saving the time-stamps with regards to the states mentioned above. After making many calls I export the time-stamps in a data file and analyze them to get different network stats.
What is my Issue:
I have to cross-match the time-stamps to get stats. Now the problem is that if the phones' clocks are not synced then I will not be able to get exact stats (e.g. how much time it takes to get phone B in ringing state after phone A initiates a call?).
What I have Tried: So far I have tried to sync clocks with NTP, GPS or atomic clock. I have used ClockSync (Android app) to get offset of both phone clocks from atomic clock. The issue is that this offset depends on RTT of network packets from my phone to server. I gives my difference of up to 100 ms when I check offset two times (tap refresh two times consecutively). The offsets at both phones can lead to error of up to 200 ms which is unacceptable for me.
All other syncing apps/methods have same issue.
Possible way forward: (What I think). I may develop an app that
takes the time-stamp at phone A
transfers that to phone B via Bluetooth or WiFi (connected to same router),
B then compares that time-stamp with its own clock, calculates offset,
And I run my original app, run experiments and,
Use the offset to correct time-stamps before processing data
Your Comments/Suggestions: How to do it? And comments on the method described in last part..
I'm writing an BLE application, where need to track if peripherals device is advertising or has stop.
I followed getting peripherals without duplications this and BLE Filtering behaviour of startLeScan() and I completely agree over here.
To make it feasible I kept timer which re-scan for peripherals after certain time (3 sec). But with new device available on market(with 5.0 update), some time re-scan take bit time to find peripherals.
Any suggestion or if anyone have achieved this?
Sounds like you're interested in scanning advertisements rather than connecting to devices. This is the "observer" role in Bluetooth Low Evergy, and corresponds to the "broadcaster" role more commonly known as a Beacon. (Bluetooth Core 4.1 Vol 1 Part A Section 6.2)
Typically you enable passive scanning, looking for ADV_IND packets broadcast by beacons. These may or may not contain a UUID. Alternatively, you can active scan by transmitting SCAN_REQ to which you may receive a SCAN_RSP. Many devices use different advertising content in ADV_IND and SCAN_RSP to increase the amount of information that can be broadcast - you could, for instance, fit a UUID128 into the ADV_IND followed by the Device Name in the SCAN_RSP. (Bluetooth Core 4.1 Vol 2 Part E Section 7.8.10)
Now you need to define "go away" - are you expecting the advertisements to stop or to fade away? You will get a Receive Signal Strength Indication "RSSI" with each advertisement (Bluetooth Core 4.1 Vol 2 Part E Section 7.7.65.2) - this is how iBeacon positioning works and there's plenty of support for beacon receivers in Android.
Alternatively you wait for N seconds for an advertisement that should be transmitted every T seconds where N>2T. The downside of the timed approach is that probably not receiving a beacon isn't the same as definitely receiving a weak beacon; to be sure you need N to be large and that impacts the latency between the broadcaster being switched off or moving out of range and your app detecting it.
One more thing - watch out that Advertising stops if something connects to a Peripheral (if you really are scanning for peripherals) another good reason to monitor RSSI.
First scenario: Bonded Devices
We know that if a bond is made, then most of the commercially available devices send directed advertisements in during re-connection. In situations such as this, according to BLE 4.0 specification, you cannot scan these devices on any BLE sniffer.
Second scenario: Connectable Devices
Peripheral devices are usually in this mode when they are initially in the reset phase. The central sends a connect initiator in response to an advertisement packet. This scenario offers you a lot of flexibility since you can play around with two predominant configuration options to alter connection time. These are: slavelatency on the peripheral and conninterval on the central. Now, I don't know how much effort it's going to take get it working on the Android platform, but if you use the Bluez BLE stack and a configurable peripheral such as a TI Sensor tag, then you can play around with these values.
Third scenario: Beacon devices
Since this is what your question revolves around, according to the BLE architecture, there are no parameters to play with. In this scenario, the central is just a dumb device left at the mercy of when a peripheral chooses to send it's beaconing signal.
Reference:
http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Bluetooth-Communications-Sensing-Library/dp/1608075796/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_z
http://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Low-Energy-Developers-Handbook/dp/013288836X/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_y
Edit: I forgot, have you tried setting the advertiser to non-connectable? That way you should be able to get duplicate scan results
I am dealing with a similar issue, that is, reliably track the RSSI values of multiple advertising devices over time.
It is sad, the most reliable way i found is not nice, rather dirty and battery consuming. It seems due to the number of android devices that handle BLE differently the most reliable.
I start LE scan, as soon as i get a callback i set a flag to stop and start scan again. That way you work around that DUPLICATE_PACKET filter issue since it resets whenever you start a fresh scan.
The ScanResults i dump into a sqlite db wich i shrink and evaluate once every x seconds.
It should be easy to adapt the shrinking to your use case, i.e. removing entries that are older than X, and then query for existance of a device to find out if you received a ScanResult in the last X seconds. However dont put that X value too low, as you must take into account that you still lose alot of advertisement packets on android LE scan, compared to a BLE scan on i.e. bluez..
Edit:
I can add some information i already found for speeding up the performance on Advertisement discovery. It involves modifying and compiling the bluedroid sources and root access to the device. Easiest would be building a full android yourself, i.e. Cyanogenmod.
When a LE scan is running, the bluetooth module sends the scan sesponse via HCI to the bluedroid stack. There various checks are done until it finally gets handed to the Java onScanResult(...) which is accessed via JNI.
By comparing the log of the hci data sent from the bluetooth module (can be enabled in /etc/bluetooth/bt_stack.conf) with debug output in the bluedroid stack aswell as the Java side i noticed that alot of advertisement packets are discarded, especially in some check. i dont really understand, beside that it has something to do with the bluedroid inquiry database
From the documentation of ScanResult we see that the ScanRecord includes the advertisement data plus the scan response data. So it might be that android blocks the report until it got the scan response data/ until it is clear there is no scan response data. This i could not verify, however a possibility.
As i am only interested in rapid updates on the RSSI of those packets, i simply commented that check out. It seems that way every single packet i get from the bluetooth moduly by hci is handed through to the Java side.
In file btm_ble_gap.c in function BOOLEAN btm_ble_update_inq_result(tINQ_DB_ENT *p_i, UINT8 addr_type, UINT8 evt_type, UINT8 *p)
comment out to_report = FALSE; in the following check starting on line 2265.
/* active scan, always wait until get scan_rsp to report the result */
if ((btm_cb.ble_ctr_cb.inq_var.scan_type == BTM_BLE_SCAN_MODE_ACTI &&
(evt_type == BTM_BLE_CONNECT_EVT || evt_type == BTM_BLE_DISCOVER_EVT)))
{
BTM_TRACE_DEBUG("btm_ble_update_inq_result scan_rsp=false, to_report=false,\
scan_type_active=%d", btm_cb.ble_ctr_cb.inq_var.scan_type);
p_i->scan_rsp = FALSE;
// to_report = FALSE; // to_report is initialized as TRUE, so we basically leave it to report it anyways.
}
else
p_i->scan_rsp = TRUE;
My BLE application requires computation on the server side (BLE chip) which takes time and results with disconnection.
Th flow is like this:
1- Android phone writes the characteristic value to the BLE chip.
2- The chip evaluates this value and starts computation.
3- The connection is lost soon after the computation has started.
What solution can I apply to prevent the disconnecton? I have two solutions in my mind:
1- Changing the connection interval: Currently Android uses 7.5 msec as connection interval. Since the computation on BLE chip takes time, packets are not sent or received during the computation. Increasing the connection interval will decrease the number of lost packets. However there is no guarantee that Android phone will accept the new connection parameters.
2- Running the computation in a separate thread: I dont think that BLE chips' SDK support multi-threading such that while there is a computation process going on, it will keep receiving and sending packets and prevent the disconnection. I use CSR chip and I think it doesnt support.
Please correct me if I am wrong at my points.
Do you have any other suggestions to solve the issue?
Thanks in advance.
Thank you for the answers. I found out what the problem is after spending hours.
First of all, when Android gives error 133 or 129, it is most probably because of the remote device.
At the beginning I thought that the problem occurred because of the supervision timeout. Then I re-configured the connection parameters of the CSR chip but it didn't help.
There is a problem about CSR app development with xIDE (IDE of CSR). When there is run-time-error due to index overshoot or accessing some invalid pointers, then you would not receive any errors in xIDE. I finally found out the array problem and fixed it. Now it works perfect.
Thanks a lot!
I don't know exactly if what i going to explain it's feasible under Android because I used BLE only with a low level applications, anyway if your problems are the connection parameters you can try to change the Slave_Latency.
It should be usefull since playing with this parameter, you can change the number of connection intervals in which the Central device can wait until it considers the connection lost.
The following equation is usefull to derive the connection parameters:
Effective_Connection_Interval = (Connection_Interval)*(1+(Slave_Latency))
Remember that can exists some kind of Supervision_Timeout that can collide with your Effective_Connection_Interval