Sunday 24 November 2013

Android App Updated (version 0.7b)

I just uploaded an updated version of the BlueFlyVario app to Google Play. The update will take a few hours to propagate.

New Hardware Settings

The main new feature is the addition of new hardware settings to work with the new version 7 prototype hardware. You should read this previous blog post to understand how hardware settings work. The new hardware settings for version 7 allow the BlueFlyVario to output pressure and vario data in new ways. This means it is compatible with a wider range of applications via the bluetooth SPP connection. The new settings are:

  • outputMode (default = 0) - Sets the output mode. The available output modes are:
    • 0 - The standard BlueFlyVario output mode. This sends raw pressure measurements in the form: 
      • "PRS XXXXX\n": XXXXX is the raw (unfiltered)pressure measurement in hexadecimal pascals.
    • 1 - The LK8EX1 output mode for use with LK8000. This sends pressure and vario data in the form: 
      • "$LK8EX1,pressure,altitude,vario,temperature,battery,*checksum\r\n": pressure is sent as a decimal integer number of pascals, altitude is not sent (99999 is sent instead), vario is the decimal integer vertical climb rate in cm/s, temperature is in degrees Celsius (1 decimal place), and battery is the battery voltage of the on-board battery (2 decimal places). 
    • 2 - The LXWP0 output mode for use with a range of apps: 
      • "$LXWP0,loger_stored (Y/N), IAS (kph), baroaltitude (m), vario (m/s),,,,,,heading of plane,windcourse (deg),windspeed (kph)*CS": The BlueFlyVario only has a partial implementation of this sentence. It only outputs the baroaltitude and vario (all other fields are blank). Note that baroaltidude is determined from filtered pressure using the outputQNH setting.
    • 3 - The FlyNet protocol:
      • "_PRS XXXXX\n": In this case XXXXX is output as the filtered pressure stream. The filtering parameters used are those from the other hardware settings.  
  • outputFrequency (default = 1). Sets the frequency of output sentences from the BlueFlyVario. The BlueFlyVario hardware runs on a 20ms cycle (50 cycles per second). If outputFrequency is set to 1 then the hardware will send a sentence on each cycle. If set to 2 it will send a sentance every second cycle and so on (if set to 50 is will send a sentence every 50th cycle, i.e. once per second). You might use this with the LK8EX1 output mode to send a sentence five times per second (set to 10). 
  • outputQNH (default = 101325). See outputMode = 2 above. 


You will only see the new hardware settings if you have the new version 7 prototype hardware or have upgraded the firmware on version 6 hardware. Firmware upgrade requires a microchip programmer and the hex file. If you think you can do this yourself contact me and I will send you the hex file (or you can send me your version 6 prototype and I will do it for you).

Other changes

Most other changes to the app are minor such as bug fixes associated with some European locals that use ',' as a decimal separator.

I have added rudimentary support for the new BlueFlyVario_Twin, which has two pressure sensors and can be used to calculate pitot speed and total energy compensated vertical speed. More on that in a future blog post when the new device is ready for release...