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What's that touchscreen in my room?

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Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#21
post #16

Okay, but: Did the author find the configuration for the energy cost (money and CO2) and update it, so that the touchscreen shows the proper info now?

He did! :) It was located in the `/srv/server/bin/cfg` file.

Awesome! I had some instances of "digging so deep into a fascinating problem that I forgot the initial reason I started digging" :)

It actually looks like a reasonable system overall. Maybe a bit bloated on the node.js side (what isn't?), but I wonder if they just had that toolchain already in place/experience with it, even though it's overkill for the system as-is. Or maybe they just googled how to do networking and copy/pasted the top Stack Overflow answer that included Socket.IO.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#25

I like the part where you flip the neighbor’s power off for a couple seconds. That’ll teach ‘em to get a UPS!

I felt pretty bad about it, but my curiosity took over :) It was only the power for their Energy Manager though, not the power to the entire apartment!

In any case, I doubt they were actually using this Energy Manager thing anyway. The number one feature listed on websites selling these things is "Earn two code credits under the code for sustainable homes". I assume you do not need to teach people how to use the thing to earn these credits...

https://uk-metering.net/products/netthings-energy-manager

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#28
post #14

Very nostalgic, I have developed several apps before with Lollipop and was surprised with their choice of using WebView. I believe they set the NetThings app as a “launcher” app?

I also assumed that they would, but weirdly no. When the tablet booted up, I was greeted with stock launcher. Also, WebView is only part of the app, they used something else (which did not look like Android native UI) for the WiFi network picker.

The launcher with its Holo tabs and the icon style look more like Android 4.something (I to K) to me, by the way. Android 5 (L) was the first Material Design release (the one[1] that had actual coherent principles behind it).

[1] https://m1.material.io/

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#29

Hey Nikita, that was an excellent read. It felt like a pivotal scene in a movie that would change the course of the succeeding narrative. I envy the ability to write so nicely and clearly, making it enjoyable for most generally technical people and keeping us engaged. I will watch out for more articles.

Hi Brajeshwar, that was a nice comment. It convinced me to read the article, and I'm glad I did.
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