Flojack BZR Android Issues

[JonathanParticipant]

I recently got a hold of what I believe is a Flojack BZR (it looks just like the pictures here). It has never been used, but I’m having trouble getting it to work. I cloned Android library from GitHub and installed ACR35/Demo App/AudioJackDemo.apk to my device. But whenever I press the Power On button under PICC (as the ARC35 user guide indicates), the operation invariably times out.

My volume is set to max, and the Flojack battery has been charging for a few hours (although the light still turns yellow when I plug it in, so I assume it is not 100% charged).

I have tried using a Samsung Galaxy S5 Active, a Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet, and a Motorola Moto E. I found a list of ACR3x supported devices somewhere, but the Android devices listed seem older. Are these up to date? Will the Flojack BZR really only work with a handful of Android devices? The website says it can work with “any mobile device running iOS or Android.”

• This topic was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by  Jonathan.

[RichardKeymaster]

Hi Jonathan, the FloJack BZR device is not the same hardware as the FloJack MSR/ACR35 and as such requires the driver that is in the aR530 folder on GitHub.

best,
Richard

[JonathanParticipant]

Ah, good to know. Thanks for the link

I’m now trying to import the project located at flomio_android/aR530/Sample Code into Android Studio to test, but I’m running into some issues (apparently it refers to some files in an Eclipse Workspace?). Is there an apk somewhere of a demo app that I can run?

[JonathanParticipant]

Okay, so I got the aR530/Sample Code project to import and build. But I still can’t get the FloJack BZR to connect. I plug it in and the app opens a “waiting” dialog for a minute and then says “Handshake fail.” Should I be doing something differently?

[RichardKeymaster]

The Handshake fail error is an API response indicating that the audio driver is failing to communicate properly with the BZR. The issue likely has to do with the target device you’re using not being supported by the sample code. Part of the drawback of the audio jack interface is that it’s not standardized making it difficult to get the comm driver to work across all different flavors of Android hardware. More details on this problem on this blog post.

We haven’t had a chance to release our work with BZR on Android. Is this something you’re working on for a budgeted project or as a side thing? I ask because we offer Flomio Service hours to assist customers with specific integrations with our products. Something to consider.

best,
Richard

[JonathanParticipant]

Okay, I understand. Right now, the FloJack isn’t a super high priority for me though.

Am I correctly understanding that the FloBLE is the best option for reading/writing nfc tags from an Android device that doesn’t come with NFC capability built in?

[RichardKeymaster]

Yes, the FloBLE Plus is the most complete and capable offering that we have for Android at the moment.

best,
Richard

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