Issues to be aware of when testing AirFlare
While these issues are generally not expected to affect normal function of AirFlare for consumers, the following are important to be famliiar with when testing AirFlare.
Platform: iOS
Status: Solutions being investigated
If the app has been killed (swiped off the screen from stack of apps), then AirFlare won’t automatically respond. A user still can, but the app won’t do so on its own until launched by the user again.
Platform: Android 8+
Status: Investigating
When subject phone is in not airplane mode, subject fixes aren’t returned to the detector. Subject fixes will be returned to the detector when airplane mode is on.
Platform: Android 8
Status: Investigating Android 9 for fix from Google
When not in airplane mode, if the phone has been off for a little while (10-30 min), detections may take up to 15 minutes. When in airplane mode, detections will be rapid as normal. See also the guidance on “wilderness mode beacon” below.
Platform: Android 5-7
Status: Known OS limitation
If the app is killed, it may take up to 5 minutes for it to become responsive to the detector again. If Settings–>Applications–>Force Stop or some 3rd party task managers are used, however, AirFlare will have to be launched again by the user in order to become responsive again.
Platform: Android and iOS
Status: Testing guidance
Before using a phone for beacon testing, ensure:
• All potentially in-range WiFi SSIDs have been “forgotten”
• Phone’s WiFi MAC address is not on detector’s ignore list (unlikely, unless ignore feature known to be used in your team)
• The phone has not been connected to the test detector via Field Console. If it has, the detector may need to be restarted.
• Bluetooth and WiFi are on
• On iOS 11+, when WiFi or Bluetooth is disabled from Command Center (panel pulled in from top of screen, as opposed to Settings app), they will soon automatically re-enable and hence AirFlare does not complain–but detections won’t happen until they do
Platform: Android 8+
Status: Testing guidance
When the device has airplane mode, Bluetooth, and WiFi enabled, the app will automatically turn on the wilderness mode beacon, which is more responsive to the detector. The device will show an AirFlare notification saying “Beacon online. Tap for details.” in the notification tray when the wilderness mode beacon is active.
Note that it may take some time for the wilderness mode beacon to be activated once the above conditions are met:
– Up to 15-30 minutes if the AirFlare app is not in the foreground
– Up to 10 seconds if the AirFlare app is in the foreground
– Immediately anytime the AirFlare app is started or brought to the foreground
For best results when testing with a detector, ensure that the subject Android 8+ device is showing the “Beacon online” notification before placing it for test.
Platform: Android 5-7
Status: Known limitation
After the detector has woken up the phone once (to make it responsive to the beacon) and then turned off or gone out of range, it will not wake up the phone again for an OS version-dependent period of time:
- Android 5-7: up to 2.5 minutes
- Android 8 w/o airplane mode: 7.5 minutes