Emoncms Android App V2.0.8 (open beta testing)

glyn.hudson · 7 March 2017 00:33

Introducing Emoncms android app V2.0.0 (alpha)

Update 8th March: alpha testing has not indicated any major issues, the update has been promoted to beta and will start rolling out to all existing beta users in the next few hours via Google Play Store.

@tamsin has been working on some really nice updates to the Android Emoncms app.

New features

1. Support for multiple emoncms accounts:

Monitor multiple Emoncms accounts, very useful for installers etc.
These accounts can be on different servers e.g. emoncms.org, emonPi. emonBase, yourawesomeserver.com etc

2. Support for multiple MyElectric graphs per account:

Great for users who want to monitor more than one power feed e.g most of us power users

e.g. House consumption, Heat Pump consumption, Solar PV production, EV charging etc

3 Support for multiple currency rates for different MyElectric graphs:

Great for users who have different tariff rates e.g Economy7. In the screenshot examples I show my night time EV charging power with a different (lower) currency tariff to my daily rate.

4. Added French and German translation:

Italy, Germany and France all rank among the top 5 users in terms of app installs. They deserve native language support. Still need to add Italy, is anyone (Italien) able to help with this?

5. Chromebook support:

Most Chromebooks can now run native android apps, the Emoncms app works great on a Chromebook. It’s much quicker to load than the web version and does not require a login each time. See screenshot below:

Video preview

Also thanks to:

@JumpMaster (Original app author: various fixes and guidence)
@bidouilleur (French translation proofreading & corrections)
@revil.o (German translation proofreading & corrections)

The Android App including the latest changes is fully open-source on GitHub. Any contributions are welcome

Alpha Testing

I know many of you (252 in fact!) are already opted in as ‘beta testers’, however since there are some significant changes in this version it would be good to start with a smaller closed ‘alpha’ testing group.

Please PM me your email if you would like to be part of the ‘alpha’ test group.

After I add you to the alpha group follow this URL to update to the new ‘alpha’ verion via GooglePlay.

Feedback

Feedback (especially bug reports) are very much appreciated. If the app crashes please follow the on-screen prompt to send a feedback / bug report to the.

Please also provide feedback on this thread, if possible please note:

Device make and model
Android OS version
Emoncms server used
What caused the bug / crash / error
Steps to reproduce
Screenshot(s) to illustrate

If possible try and keep feedback focused on the new features for now, it would be a good idea to start a new thread with ideas / suggestions for new features to add in subsequent releases.

Limitations

MyElectric graphs (as used in Android and iOS apps) only work with PHPFINA feeds and incrementing Power to kWh feeds NOT daily kWh/d. Please check to see if MyElectric graph works for your feeds in web version of Emoncms before testing with the Android app.

Screenshots

Update message:

Add multiple Emoncms accounts and switch between them:

Add multiple MyElectric graphs and swipe between them (left-right):

Chromebook:

peter · 8 March 2017 09:03

OK, got the update this morning. This is my raw an initial feedback and while it may seem like a noob has wondered in, I really am not - but I work in a software support environment and I know how to become a “user” very quickly.

I tried using the original app but found it too complicated to set-up and for that reason it gave me little value over just using the standard App web pages for MySolar.

Installed on a Lenovo Yoga Book (Android 6.0.1).

Still too complicated to set-up. It needs “wizards”. The QR code thing is great and if it wasn’t for that I would have walked away again. The idea that any “user” is ever going to cut/paste - or even worse type in - the API key is a non starter. Just having to enter the URL with this stripped, that missing etc. will confuse most. The QR code should be the ONLY set-up method on the main pages with an “Advanced” or “Expert” click through for details.

Now, I’m in and trying to add a page. I’m lost again. The feeds are set to AUTO but there is no guidance as to what feeds it expects to see (by name) so that if they don’t match I can try to pick one. I eventually, simply through matching the units (watts/kWh), picked the right feeds.

I’ve now got one page set-up but I use E7 so the single “cost” metric is confusing (I am being a user again) so I leave it at zero.

I suspect that because my local emonpi has accreted many feeds over the years that they match my naming scheme and this does break some of the assumptions - that is my problems - but in cases like this I think a much more guided set-up would be beneficial.

In terms of look and feel once set-up; I like it. I can see the work that has gone into it.

Again, apologies if the above sound overly negative - it’s NOT meant to be; I am being a “user” on purpose.

One more thing; feature request - any support for real-time widgets planned? This is where it would win for me (with mostly tablets and lots of screen estate.

I will continue and install on my many other Android devices and update with any observations.

joyrider3774 · 8 March 2017 09:14

i would like to test but some of my feeds, well actually most are phpfiwa for my power values. So in order to be able to test i first have to find a way to convert my phpfiwa to phpfina feeds. I tried searching the forums but could not really find info on how to do it except a metion that trystan seems to know how to do it.

if converting from phpfiwa to phpfina works my main concern is to retain the same feedid for them or at least have some way to change the feedid of the new phpfina feed back to the original one. Since i have a local emoncs install i can mess around in the database. My guess the conversion will create a new feed but if it’s possible to just edit the feedid in the database i’m all for it.

Currently i keep modifying the sources to let me choose phpfiwa feeds on the web version but with the android app this might not be that easy so i’m thinking on converting my phpfiwa to phpfina feeds before i start testing the new app but would need to know how to go about this.

The reason i want to retain the seem feedid is that i have many external applications like home assistant or my wemo power reporting app that interact with my emoncms installation and they all use the feedid’s to either submit or read data to / from emoncms. And i don’t want to start changing all my apps / configs / dashboards as that would take way to many time

edit just found the phpfiwa_to_phpfina.php script usefulscripts/convertdata at master · emoncms/usefulscripts · GitHub . I’ll give it a shot but i’m first going to backup my data

Edit2: All phpfiwa feeds are converted to phpfina. But the script is not windows compatible, it gave me an error on some redis command, the check for sudo and the exec chown statements, which are all linux specific except for the redis one, not sure why that failed (on hset) but i don’t have redis installed so commented that line as well afterwards conversion seemed to run fine but have no way to verify if everything is ok

glyn.hudson · 8 March 2017 12:56

Thanks for feedback, the ‘AUTO’ feed setup looks for feeds called use and use_kwh. Yes, it would be a good idea to add this as a note at the bottom of the feed setup page.

Good to hear the app is working OK on your phones. Would you mind if I asked the make and model and Android version?

I think I will promote the app from ‘closed alpha test’ to ‘open beta’ to get users to test.

Yes, real-time widgets would be nice. They are on the list, however one step at a time. We are keen to ensure the new feature that have just been added are bug free and work on all devices.

borpin · 8 March 2017 13:34

Could you run it in Bash for Windows? Tried this the other day. It is amazing (rsync’d files from a Pi to my Windows laptop).

joyrider3774 · 8 March 2017 13:37

hey borpin,

I had not thought on trying that but as i understand most of the code i just quickly skimmed the script and removed (commented out) linux specific commands. The only one i did not catch was the redis one. As soon as i had commented everything out that was linux specific (give or take 4 - 5 lines of code) the script worked on windows as well without a problem. Since i deleted the original phpfiwa feeds in the process i’m affraid i’m not able to rerun the script as it there are no more feeds to convert

joyrider3774 · 8 March 2017 18:43

Okay finally got the new version

my phone: Huawei ascend p7 running android 5.1.1, it’s all official firmwares from the manufacturer and the phone is not rooted

1 bug i found already perhaps 2

It migrated my settings but i somehow ended up with two pages displaying the same data, i removed one and all was ok
I can make the app crash or at least so it seems. If you add a new page and fill in all details (feed power / kwh, currency sign, kwh elepased) but with price you remove the “0” value so it becomes blank (so just remove the 0 with backspace) and then you press the back button on the top left (which would normally save the new page), the app seems to crash with no fault or anything. i’m returned to my android phones main screen. When restarting the app that page i was adding is not created.
here’s a video showing the bug in action:

not really a bug but kinda weird:

if kwh usage is less than 0.05 it is displayed as 0.0 but bargraph does show diffrences like it’s not 0.0 this is probably due to low kwh used values on that day and i understand why it’s displayed like this so i don’t consider it really a bug but some might find it weird.
here’s a screenshot of what i mean:

Screenshot_2017-03-08-20-04-17.png720×1280 50.3 KB

suggestions:

remember the values of cost / currency sign etc for new my electric pages or have a way (could not find it) to duplicate a page so that you only need to alter the power and kwh feed
a way to change currency sign / cost for multiple pages at once. Electricity cost changes yearly and when like me having multiple pages i would otherwise need to change 8 pages manually not that big of a deal with copy / paste but still might be a nice feature

I really like being able to have multiple my electric pages as of now i have 1 account working with my local emoncs installation and 8 my electric pages, one for each of my smart wall plug energy monitorings (like wemo insight’s) and all works fine. I did not test multiple accounts yet, i might still have an account on emoncms.org but no valid data there.

I’ll see if can find some more problems

glyn.hudson · 8 March 2017 19:51

Thanks a lot for your feedback. Yes we will look into applying the tweaks you mention.

Since alpha testing has not indicated any major issues, the update has been promoted to beta and will start rolling out to all existing beta users in the next few hours via Google Play Store.

bidouilleur · 8 March 2017 20:57

installed on a good old nexus, with android 4.3

Have to say the remarks from Peter are valid regarding ease of use. For a newbie, it’s way too complicated.

I can confirm the crash on blank cost, it crashed, did send a feedback with logs.

when you use the buttons above the graph to select a period, when you go to a period with high values it adapts the hight so the graph doesn’t flow out of sight but when you go back to another period where you only have small values, it doesn’t zoom in so you end up with a tiny little flat line. And even when you zoom in via pinch it stays low…also scrolling the graph is lagging on my nexus (stock install with no extra layers nor hacking) seems it needs to go load data.

rotating screen when adding a new page makes it crash and you come back to home screen.

also adding a page in horizontal mode … no way to scroll down to add for ex the value for cost.

first tests for tonight

joyrider3774 · 9 March 2017 08:24

weird i never got the option to send a crash report, it could mean 3 things, i either choose once never send crash report or always send crash report in the past or the crash reporting never came around on my phone / android version.

I’ve been looking in google for a way to reset it so i should get a question again, but can’t seem to find a way to reset. Some suggest reinstalling the app but since i removed it yesterday before installing the alpha version that did not seem to work as i did not get a crash report question. Anyone have any idea how to get the messages to send crash reports to display again ?

matclab · 9 March 2017 15:33

Hi,

This seems a nice evolution.

Do you now if this app need a recent emoncms instance. I’ve a quite old v8.3.6 running, and after disabling ssl the application connects (i.e. I can select the feds I want to see), but when trying to update the graphs, the applications show a json error saying the feed does not exist.

I’ve tried to access http://www.example.come/moncms/feed/fetch.json?ids=7 (where 7 is an existing feed), but the return value is {“success”:false,“message”:“Feed does not exist”}.

Any help is welcome.

matclab · 9 March 2017 15:35

Responding to myself, the feed/api page doesn’t show the fetch.json api.

I’ll upgrade my emoncms instance and try again.

glyn.hudson · 10 March 2017 00:05

See the ‘limitations’ I posted on the top post above. These are limitations of the MyElectric graph rather than than the Android app:

MyElectric graphs (as used in Android and iOS apps) only work with PHPFINA feeds and incrementing Power to kWh feeds NOT daily kWh/d. Please check to see if MyElectric graph works for your feeds in web version of Emoncms before testing with the Android app.

glyn.hudson · 13 March 2017 14:40

All beta testers should now be getting an update:

Follow this link to join the beta test group: Sign in – Google accounts

Please report experiences to this thread, and remember to thank @tamsin. She has generously worked on the new features for the app in her spare time and released as open-source

bidouilleur · 13 March 2017 18:33

4 hours later and I didn’t see anything on the Droid ??? time for it to propagate trough the store ?

Paul · 13 March 2017 19:46

Just received the update.
Noticed something with changing the preset time periods, so opening the app, I see 6hrs of data in the graph;

But if I change the view to 3hrs, the graph is compressed into the left hand side;

I can pinch to expand the view to fill the full screen.
HTC M8 - Android 6.12.401.4 - HTC Sense 7.0

Paul

glyn.hudson · 14 March 2017 13:00

Thanks for reporting @Paul. I’ll take look. I’ve opened an issue:

bidouilleur · 15 March 2017 20:49

is it possible to get a version number in future updates please. I didn’t see the update come (not even sure it came). Haven’t got a clue. in the settings I see 2.0.0
Still have the same problems when rotating the screen.

Paul · 15 March 2017 22:36

Eric, hopefully fixed tonight by Tamsin in v2.0.1, but not sure when the update will emerge in the Google Play store.

Paul

glyn.hudson · 15 March 2017 23:40

Evening guys, thanks for all the feedback. @tamsin has been amazing at fixing all the bugs mentioned

I’ve just released V2.0.1 to the beta channel which contains the following fixes:

Fixed: App crashes if no value is entered for currency cost bug App crashes if no value is entered for currency cost · Issue #19 · emoncms/AndroidApp · GitHub
Fixed App crashes when page settings are open and device is rotated App crashes when page settings are open and device is rotated · Issue #18 · emoncms/AndroidApp · GitHub
Fixed: When tapping on ‘3H’ to view last 3hrs of data the display does not fill the screen When tapping on '3H' to view last 3hrs of data the display does not fill the screen · Issue #17 · emoncms/AndroidApp · GitHub

The V2.0.1 is rolling out to beta testers via Google Play, you should get it in the next few hours. Onwards and upwards!

Yup, 2.0.0 is correct for the previous beta version. You can see the version in Android app settings (Settings > apps > Emoncms). Yes, we could put the version number directly into the app in future versions. Good idea.