I have one single Gmail account signed up for C2DM.
What I would like is that my app, thanks to this account (after having requested registration IDs and auth tokens for each device), could be able to provide messages to all the devices in which the app is installed.
I want to know if is it possible to use the C2DM in this way..
Thanks a lot
(for any details, just ask me.. )
ps I made the c2dm work on the emulator, but of course I cannot try what written before because I would need several phones..
Going off your question and comments, it sounds like you're just wondering if you can send c2dm notifications to an indeterminate number of devices using only one sender id.
That is exactly the way c2dm is supposed to work. You create one sender id to use on your backend servers, and that sender id is used in your app to register for c2dm notifications. Your backend then gathers all registrations ids and uses your one sender id to push notifications interested parties.
If I understood your issue correctly, the answer is: you can't.
You will have to send one http request, to google servers, for each device you want to reach.
There's no way to broadcast a message to all the users who have registered to your service.
It' frustrating because in my case I send a newsletter for all my users, so opening a connection to millions of users is expensive.
To solve the scalability issue I have created a simple appengine map-reduce task that loops through all the user registrations and create the http connection to the google services, it's the fastest you can go because it dynamically instantiate new servers for your delivery needs.
C2DM has been deprecated. GCM has replaced it, and it allows you to send messages to 1000 devices with one HTTP POST.
C2DM->GCM Migration Guide:
http://developer.android.com/guide/google/gcm/c2dm.html
Related
I am trying to develop the Messenger App like Whatsapp using Firebase.
I'm already done the code for device to device notifications and now I am trying to send the notifications to specified group.
Please provide the example code for the Group Notifications.
There are a few ways to send messages to groups of users:
Send the message to a topic that all users subscribe to. This is the simplest scenario, since you don't need to keep a list of tokens. But you have less control over the actual people that receive the message, as anyone who knows a topic can subscribe to it.
Keep a list of device tokens for each group in your app server, and then send to each individual device in the group.
You can also use the previous version of the API to send to batches of up to 500 tokens at a time. This sort of multicast delivery is not yet possible in the new API.
For an example of this, see the documentation of Cloud Functions and the sample repo.
Send to a device group with the legacy API. I'd only recommend this approach if the devices are actually owned by one user, which is the case that device groups are meant for.
Try this link
Don't forget this line Authentication:
key=<Your_API_Key>
The word (key) is important
I am working on an app, which requires Android push notifications to be implemented.
I have decided to use Firebase Cloud Messaging directly; without using any other abstraction such as AWS SNS or Pusher.
I would like to avoid storing and managing device tokens in the backend, by using the following approach.
In the android app.
When the user logs into the android application, obtain device token but not send it to the server.
Subscribe to a topic that is based on a agreed convention, such that the topic is unique to that user.
On logout unsubscribe from the topic.
In the Server.
Whenever a situation arises to send a notification to particular user, send push notification to the topic, that is based on the convention.
I would like to know if this is a viable strategy to avoid managing device tokens ?
Case against using topics.
From the official docs.
Based on the publish/subscribe model, FCM topic messaging allows you to send a message to multiple devices that have opted in to a particular topic. You compose topic messages as needed, and FCM handles routing and delivering the message reliably to the right devices.
For example, users of a local weather forecasting app could opt in to a "severe weather alerts" topic and receive notifications of storms threatening specified areas. Users of a sports app could subscribe to automatic updates in live game scores for their favorite teams.
I see that topics are recommended, when multiple devices are to be notified. But I have decided to create a topic per user, this would mean most topics would end up getting subscribed by only one device; Is this approach ok ?
I see that topics are recommended, when multiple devices are to be notified
Yes, multiple devices that have something common to listen to, which is the topic. Topics are used for messages that could be received by the general clients since it is public -- i.e. anyone could subscribe and receive messages sent to it.
What is advised to use for multiple devices, but for the same user is to use Device Groups (see my answer here for tips on Managing Device Groups). However, if you don't mind the "topics being public" part, then your approach should be fine.
Yes, Here required device tokens if we want to send push notification whoever installed your app.
My research we can save device tokens in back end at first time installation of your app that is better according to my understanding so that we can easy to send push notification across all devices.
Is GCM the only way for push notifications in android? And is it advisable over other methods (if there are any)?
So let's say my app from a device registers on GCM. Is it the app itself which is assosciated with the device that registers itself, or the user and his email id that register? If my user switches devices in future, will the same 'registration token' work for him ? Or in a similar scenario if a user with another g-mail id registers to my app from the same device, do i push notifications to the same device with 2 different registration tokens?
Extending to what i asked in 2, suppose a single user has his g-mail id working on my app on different devices. Does GCM push the notification to all those devices, or only one of them? And if one, then how does it prioritize?
No, there are other push notification services in Android, like Parse. However, it is strongly recommended to use the default push notification service that is present in any Android device that has Google Play Store, because that reduces battery usage. If you are pushing your app somewhere else though, like Amazon Store, keep in mind that Kindle Fire does not comply with this and doesn't have Google Play Services -- at least as far as I know.
The registration token is very volatile and is not bound at all to an email. Actually, sometimes the same device may get a new GCM ID out of the blue. There are many tutorials on GCM's best practices, but Google's is the best way to start. What you should do to prevent problems is store the GCM id of your device in your database, so you can always know which ID is currently associated to your device. GCM may give you new IDs for no reason, so always parse its response properly and store the new ID it may provide, linking it to the device.
GCM doesn't really care which Google account is your app using. That means you can register as many devices as you want with the same account. You have to manage to which devices you push notifications, because the ID is managed by device.
Be careful: there's been some changes with the API lately, so a lot of unnoficial tutorials you find on the internet may point to deprecated methods.
There are other ways of sending notifications, Tokodu and RabbitMQ for example. I wont go over if X is better than Y, since it's not allowed on StackOverflow.
A unique device token is generated for the device, how you use this device token is totally up to you. You can make it unique for the user by, for example, implementing a login system, so that the device token is created and stored in a database (together with the user information). Let's say if two different users uses your application on a shared device, they can both receive notifications on the same device if you allow them to. It depends on your own implementation.
This again depends on how you chose to implement the GCM features on your client and server side. For example, you can choose to store device tokens for each and every device the user has installed the app on, or you can store the latest device token so that notifications are only sent to one of the user's devices.
I hope this helps clear some things up.
Besides good answers above, if you need a push notification solution for a working environment without Internet access, I suggest SignalR of Microsoft, which has already supported Android and Java (you can find out more at GitHub).
Hope this helps little!
I want a push notification, when there is data in server change,delete or added etc The notification is associated with the user. And the Google Cloud Messaging notification is associated for the application running in device. Also there is a lot of over head for developers, when developer are creating the system using google cloud message. Therefore I decide not to use Google Cloud Message.
I know is using XMPP or WebSocket can fulfill my requirement but it is battery inefficient. My question is there a better approach to fulfill my requirement.
You can send the GCM registration Id in the login request to the server and remove it once the user logs out. This way you can send a GCM message to a particular user.
If you want to use a GCM alternative you can try Pushy.me, its also a very good service that uses MQTT protocol and have less headaches as compared to GCM.
Depending on your specific needs, using an alarm and intent service to poll your server every so often - say 24 hours - can work. Then create a local notification if needed. This way no third parties are needed, but you won't have real time notifications.
I have an app that currently uses C2DM for push notifications. I would like to inquire if I update the app to GCM and if some users do not upgrade their app, will Google allow me to use both the C2DM and GCM for the two versions of my app?
Or will the users on my previous app never receive a PUSH notification altough I still have the push logic implemented for C2DM?
I've completely replaced C2DM with GCM in the app, and left support for both protocols in the server side. Works like a charm; details are here.
They will still receive them as long as you don't remove any authorisation keys, ids etc. as GCM uses the Project ID while C2DM uses the registered e-mail address.
More on it here: C2DM to GCM Migration
Once the C2DM service was deprecated recently I advice you to migrate your pushes system to GCM service.
The best way to deal with it is doing the thing like Google says. Take a look at this topic in the official GCM's documentation.
While not the original question, an interesting one would be: Can one app simultaneously use C2DM and GCM.
C2DM uses the Sender-Account while GCM uses the Project-ID to register. The only thing they both might share is the App-package name (and obviously the google account of the device, but that shouldn't matter as there are multiple apps which can use gcm/c2dm in parallel anyway).
In my experience registering C2DM and GCM in the same app can cause some serious problems.
Reason to have both in one app might be that you want to use GCM in the app, but can't everywhere because a legacy backend might not be able to switch to GCM yet. Probably a rather rare scenario - but currently happening for our app.