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Configure Handlers

July 9th, 2011

Some sensor handlers in AIRS might provide certain settings that can be configured. The list of the handlers that do provide such settings is shown in the Handlers screen.

There is a small help text provided with each handler setting. Currently, the following handler settings are provided:

Phone & System Sensors

The following settings are provided:

  • Orientation Interval: determines the polling interval for the orientation sensors azimuth, roll, and pitch
  • Proximity Interval: determines the polling interval for the proximity, barometer, and light sensors
  • System Poll Interval: determines the polling interval for the system sensors like RAM and task list

Location

The following settings are provided:

  • Enable GPS: decides whether or not the GPS sensors will appear in the discovery dialogue
  • Use Network Location: enables the use of Wifi and cell locations, which can save power if this information is available
  • GPS Interval: determines the GPS polling interval in seconds. If there is a change within the defined accuracy, values can be delivered earlier than defined (e.g., during driving at higher speed)
  • GPS Accuracy: determines the GPS accuracy in meters with which new values new should be reported. If there are no changes within the defined accuracy, no values are reported even if the interval exceeds.
  • AGPS Refresh Interval: on some phones, the ephemeral information for assisted GPS can be forced to be updated frequently. This increases accuracy in times when you travel larger distances as well as in adverse situations (e.g., cloudy). You can specify the interval for a refresh of this information here.
  • Enable Wifi: if Wifi is switched off when AIRS starts, this switch can have AIRS switch on Wifi for measurements. Otherwise, no Wifi sensors are provided.
  • Prevent Wifi sleep: this option sets a partial wake lock on the Wifi, preventing a Wifi sleep during the execution of NORS. Typically Wifi is switched off when the screen is off – this setting overrides this! BEWARE: preventing Wifi sleep will increase the battery usage!
  • Wifi Interval: determines the Wifi scanning interval – the shorter, the higher the battery usage due to the Wifi scan operation!

Local Weather

The following settings are provided:

  • Weather Interval: time between weather updates in minutes (less makes little sense)
  • GPS Accuracy: Update weather only when moved more than a given distance since the last weather update. The weather sensors automatically utilize Wifi and cell location since the accuracy can only be set above 1km (less makes little sense since no weather database has more fine grained detail). However, setting the value to zero always determines the weather at the given location, having moved or not!

This sensor uses the Google Weather API for your location. If there is no connectivity, the sensor does not perform location determination. If there is no connectivity for longer than the determined interval, the sensor sleeps and determines location and weather ca. 2 seconds after connectivity becomes available.

Audio Sampling

The following settings are provided:

  • Sampling rate: determines the rate with which the surrounding noise level is sampled – a selection of choices is provided.
  • Sampling Interval: determines the interval in seconds for repeating the measurements (a sampling lasts for about one second after which the sensor waits for the here defined seconds before sampling again).
  • Sound Pressure Adjustment: sets the adjustment being used for the sound pressure level measurement (AA sensor). This needs to be done based on a calibrated sound meter. Such adjustment is necessary due to the differences in hardware in each phone, such as microphone, DAC and others.

Proximity Sampling

The following settings are provided:

  • Enable BT: if Bluetooth is switched off when starting AIRS, it can be enabled by AIRS.
  • Ask before enabling: if Bluetooth is enabled by AIRS, you can select whether or not the user should be ask before.
  • BT discoverable: sets Bluetooth in discoverable mode – this will launch a user dialogue in which the user needs to confirm the setting.
  • Poll interval: determines the interval with which devices are scanned for.
  • Sampling rate: determines the sampling rate for the audio snippets that are recorded.

BEWARE: in many countries such recording requires the consent of everybody recorded, not only the ones being detected through their devices!!

Heart Monitor

The following settings are provided:

  • Enable Heartmonitor: enables the use of AliveTech heart monitor sensing. If enabled, the handler will try to connect to the chosen devices at startup – this can cause delays in the startup so ensure that the device is available!
  • Device selection: allows for selecting the heart monitor device being used. Due an issue with the AliveTech hardware, you will need to pair the device through the standard system settings. Here, you can then select any paired AliveTech monitors.

BT Beacon

The following settings are provided:

  • Enable BT: if Bluetooth is switched off when starting AIRS, it can be enabled by AIRS.
  • Ask before enabling: if Bluetooth is enabled by AIRS, you can select whether or not the user should be ask before.
  • BT interval: the scan interval in seconds before starting another BT scan

Event & Mood Buttons

AIRS offers an Event as well as a ‘Mood‘ button to be added to your launcher’s home screen. Pressing the ‘Mood‘ or Event button triggers a signal to be sent to AIRS which opens a selector dialogue window that lets you select your current mood status (ranging from happy over angry to sad) or the event you would like to record. You can add your own description through the edit box at the bottom of the selector. The Event button selector saves your 5 previous texts, while the Mood button has a number of pre-defined moods (which you can extend with a single self-defined one).

The selection is sent to AIRS to be recorded with a timestamp. AIRS confirms the recording of the button press by a haptic feedback (three pulses). Note that pressing when the local sensing is not running has no effect.

For configuration of both buttons, you will need to add them  to the launcher screen of your Android device. For an AOSP launcher, press Add in the launcher’s menu:

This will present you with the following screen (might be slightly different for other launchers):

Select Widgets to launch the following widget selection dialog:

Now press AIRS Event Button (or AIRS Mood Button) which will add the red event button or the Android mood button to your launcher screen. You can position the button wherever you like on your screen. Simply return to your launcher screen during a sensing session and press either one of the buttons.

Media Folder Watcher

AIRS allows for watching the creation of various media files. Currently, the watching of camera, pictures, videos and music files is supported. In terms of configuration, the handler allows for enabling the various media types being watched. In addition, the user can configure the particular path being used for the watching for each particular type of media. The related recording (delivered as the MW sensor) will provide the media type as well as the file name that has been created.

Random Numbers

The random number generator only allows for setting the generation interval in seconds!