Messages

1

Cosmo Communicator - Android / Re: distorted notification sound when closed

« on: April 11, 2023, 06:52:39 am »

We did some more testing. The distortion seems to be of the kind that you get when the pointer into a PCM buffer is shifted by a byte. There's constant distortion and the desired sound is discernible somewhat with varying volume behind it.

We can start playback of a music file (MP3) in opened mode and it continues smooth playback after closing the device. I can also change the playback volume in CoDi. BUT: Once the playback is paused and then resumed via CoDi, the distortion is there. When I now change the volume, I can discern the music getting quieter/louder, but the distortion/noise stays loud.

Ringtone and notification are both affected, but the amount of perceived distortion varies depending on the intended sound.

It seems that any playback of audio that starts while the device is closed (regardless of CoDi being active or not) gets mistreated in the buffering with a byte shift. Reminds me a bit of that issue of audio being out of phase … maybe there's still some bug in the kernel driver, even? Or rather the userspace audio processing? This started happening after adding custom ringtones, probably. We removed the corresponding Ringtones and Notifications folders on the internal storage and used various standard sounds, but that does not change things back regarding the playback issue.

There is a period of rather loud baselevel noise before/after the notification sound is played, too. How is the handling of audio playback differing here from a normal Android device? Phone calls themselves (via the earpiece speakers) are fine.

Also: The phone does not vibrate at all when closed. When open, it rings and vibrates on calls or notifications as configured. Something is messed up there. Anyone experienced something like this? Is a factory reset (annoying to the user) likely to fix this?

2

Cosmo Communicator - Android / distorted audio when closed (buffer byte shift?)

« on: April 11, 2023, 04:02:53 am »

Hi,

a friend has used a Cosmo for some years. It's on the latest stock firmware. This is nobody who wants to tweak the thing, no special sauce … just a user. Recently, the Cosmo decided to play any notification sound when the lid is closed in a very distorted manner. Sounds like the volume is too high and we get hard clipping (not sure if it's the speakers or a previous mixer stage doing the clipping, probably the latter).

The notification sounds fine when the device is open. So somehow a different volume setting is applied when open or closed? Is this a feature?! I only really used a Gemini so far and do not remember such issue. I gather it might be related to CoDI, which can influence volume for media playing, I read. Also, there's CosmoCtl which enables some volume control via the  front rocker button, but only for rooted devices?!

Well, bad volume setting is just a guess I have. The one maybe unusual thing the user did was to configure a custom recording as notification/ringing sound. They told me that after this the issue of distorted notification sounds occured. It persists after changing to a stock sound bit.

Any setting we could try? Is this a bug that might get fixed by a factory reset only? Or never? It is rather unsettling to have the device rattle around wildly instead of softly announcing new messages or a call.

3

Astro Slide - Hardware / Re: Astro camera, weird artifacts when looking more closely

« on: February 16, 2023, 06:00:03 am »

Well, the MP rating of digital cameras usually is the total number of pixels, not the number of pixels per colour. The Bayer interpolation magic is used to construct three times the pixels. That's the deal with every colour sensor. It works good enough, so we do it. Though, people are removing colour filters from sensors to get true greyscale megapixels for astro photography.

The lockup with RAW sounds unpleasant. Ich checked with Open Camera on my device … it produce a huge DNG file just fine. I didn't check it on my PC (the gallery cannot view it), though. I remember Open Camera sometimes having trouble with the camera on a Galaxy S5 with LineageOS. When that happened, I had to reboot to get camera functionality back.

With the huge size of image files (at least raw) and the limited quality of the optics, I intended to opt for 12 MP photos, anyway. That is what my Canon 5D full frame DSLR uses to produce beautiful and detailed pictures, with proper glass. 48 MP out of a phone camera is just a waste of bits, IMHO. The quad bayer also clearly lends itself towards binning to the quarter resolution, anyway.

I don't think you'd be happy with 48 MP vs 12 MP on this sensor, and perhaps part of that is what you describe with these patterns on close inspection. We may differ in the opinion that I don't think it's a great loss. 48 MP is too much data to my taste, anyway (well, there goes the quip about 8K video …).

4

Astro Slide - Hardware / Re: ear phone noise

« on: December 30, 2022, 04:35:03 am »

You can solve the noise issue by using Bluetooth headphones, or a USB-C to 3.5mm jack.

Can you be more specific about which type of USB-C to 3.5mm jack? I gather there are types that simply route analog audio from the USB-C port (the same audio path as the 3.5mm? a separate mix?) and types with an internal DAC that circumvent any A/D in the Astro.

5

Astro Slide - Hardware / Re: 3.5 mm headphone jack hardware problem.

« on: December 29, 2022, 04:57:05 pm »

There is noise with display switched off if the CPU/GPU is doing some work.

I wonder: Is there someone who can report that the Astro does _not_ have digital noise on the analog audio output? Is this a basic design flaw or a production issue?

6

Astro Slide - Hardware / Re: Fast charging

« on: December 21, 2022, 02:39:26 am »

I did another round of tests, below 50% charge. At first, no luck with anything above 5 V 1.4 A, even not seeing a difference between the two USB ports. I was not able to eek out more than 5 V (or 5.2 V, if one believes the monitors) even from the Planet AC adapter.

Then, I turned the Astro off and then connected it to power in various combinations of cables, meters, power sources. There, I got more luck. The negotiation of higher-voltage modes is really finicky. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Powering with the Planet AC adapter, and with my USB-A monitor, I've seen 9.9 V 1.5 A once. With the USB-C one, I'm more likely to get around 9.6 V 1.5 A (numbers might just be a bit off in the monitors).

After having established a connection that does 9 V charging, I turned the Astro on and it was able to resume that mode after booting up, with Wattz showing 14 W going into the battery. So this seems to be the highest mode possible, but getting that depends on a bit of luck, really proper connection with cables and all intermediate sockets … and maybe even a software state that remembers that the connection was tricky before and hence disables the higher charging modes to be on the safe side? Switching off the device resets things each time power is disconnected, I think.


On my DC-DC USB charging module, which supposedly can do all the QC modes and MTK PE, the best I get is 8 W charging at 5 V. The Astro is just not able to negotiate something higher. I don't have other devices that would test this … only the Samsung Galaxy S5 phone which happily draws around 9 W, too. I have yet to test what the Astro does on a proper USB-C AC adapter with PD.

The Wattz app is handy … when I'm pressed on time I'll check if the Astro is in 'safe mode' again and power cycle it to get back to the quick charge negotiation. I wonder if someone can confirm that there is such a thing as a soft disabling of quick charging above 5 V 1.5 A  until next power-off. Maybe I just have a lottery with good/bad USB-C connector fit and wiring.

7

Astro Slide - Hardware / Re: Fast charging

« on: December 14, 2022, 04:49:38 pm »

From 40% to full in 20 minutes? That's 60% of 4000 mAh battery, 2.4 Ah. Let's use the effective voltage of 3.7 V. That's 8.9 Wh of energy, transferred in 1/3 hour (20/60 minutes), this means the power arriving at the battery needs to be 8.9*3 = 27 W. The charger only claims to be able to deliver 18 W max. and there are losses in further conversion from 9 or 12 V down to the battery.

When 'full' means 80%, then we arrive at about 18 W being pumped into the battery … when the electronics in the Astro itself work with 98.7 % efficiency, this could be barely possible.

I installed the Wattz app from F-Droid to get a display of the power and current going into/out of the battery. Right now, at 65%, it only shows 3.1 W charging (matching what the USB power monitor device says, but also without this one in between). This should be much more. Strange. I wonder if there is some setting. Also: Wattz claims 2000 mAh at 65% … this does not look like 4000 mAh for a full charge.

8

Astro Slide - Hardware / Re: Fast charging

« on: December 13, 2022, 08:40:29 am »

I got USB meters that you plug in between port and device to show voltage and current. I got both a USB-C one (DIGITUS DA-70612) and a plain USB-A one (KCX-017, modern version that can do between 4 and 30 V).

But you're right: I did mix up the ports, as it is the left one on the Gemini and the right one for the Astro (looking on the opened device, facing keyboard and display).

I see the Astro using 9 V and 1.2 A from its AC adapter. Seems like the Gemini there, far from 18 W, though. I am not that keen on max power, but am wondering about the options of having possible more efficient stages of DC to DC conversion when coming from a source like a car battery. But this might be nonsense considering that it's converted down to 4 V for the battery in the end, leaving only the issue of lowering the current on thin cables.

What is disappointing, though, but maybe not the Astro's fault: I only see 5 V 1.2 A on the output of a DC-DC module that claims 'MTK PE1.1/2.0' support, among others (QC 2.0, QC 3.0, FCP, ACP, SFCP). A Samsung Galaxy S5 phone gets 5 V 1.8 A out of this one. I wonder if I'd have more success with a device with USB PD support, as Mediatek PE 4.0 is implemented on top of that (?!).

Do we know what exact spec for 'fast charging' the Astro is supposed to support? There's such a multitude of them that I am just confused.

9

Astro Slide - Hardware / Re: Fast charging

« on: December 12, 2022, 04:15:45 pm »

The Gemini at least gets to 9 V with the Astro's charger, at around 80 %. The Astro draws 1.5 A at 5 V  around 66 % battery charge. Is this even a regression in the charging, or some tuning that doesn't apply fast charging for the first few cycles? Maybe just a setting that can be configured …

10

Astro Slide - Hardware / Re: Fast charging

« on: December 12, 2022, 12:01:01 pm »

I have an Astro now, but cannot see it actually negotiating higher voltages even with the stock charger. I see 5 V and 1.8 A, from around 5 % on up to 50 % … in that range, I'd expect a swich to 12 V.

Can anyone confirm that the device uses higher voltages or currents? I tried in booted state and after switching of, checking with a USB C power monitor.

11

Astro Slide - Android / Deejoy-Dota

« on: December 12, 2022, 07:43:00 am »

Hi,

I got a fresh Astro, came with an active installation in Chinese. I did a factory reset to ensure a clean state and, apart from feeling resistance to not using a custom rom at all again (running LineageOS on another device), I particularily wonder what the 'Deejoy-Dota' App is supposed to be. It is version 11.0.1 here, got a popup … is usually active and has the permission to be displayed over other apps. It's a kind of system app, but I never heard of it and have trouble finding any information on something of that name (and that's unrelated to DOTA multiplayer games). My OS build is Astro-11.0-Planet-05182022, and will be for some time, I guess, since updates are broken.

So, does Deejoy-Dota ring any bells? Has it a useful purpose? Does it belong onto a vanilla Android install?

12

Gemini PDA - Hardware / Upgraded external camera

« on: February 15, 2019, 06:55:17 am »

I also spent some time with the camera on the Gemini and concluded that results are much better if I reduce the camera gain (fixing ISO 400 and below, setting negative exposure bias value). The picture may be dark, but the autofocus finally manages to actually focus the picture.

It's simply out of focus otherwise. If the software can be convinced to use a low-gain mode for focus and independently from that either high gain or long exposure for the final picture, I could live with it. The missing flash can be compensated with a tiny flashlight that's useful on its own (granted, nowadays people use their smartphones as pocket flashlights …).

Can you confirm that pictures look better if enforcing less gain (noisy, but sharper)?

13

Gemini PDA - Android / Wifi calling

« on: October 27, 2018, 08:58:28 am »

I'm also very much interested in Wifi calling, here with Telekom (T-Mobile) in Germany. As I read, this should be a standard feature since Android 5.x, but the providers always list only a few popular models as compatible (Iphones, Samsung, the usual).

To be specific: I am not talking about a special app from your telco provider, I do mean standard Wifi calling that one is supposed to find in Android settings (possibly only if a SIM with a supported network is active? My current provider does not offer Wifi calling. Before I switch, I would like to know if the Gemini supports it. I fail to see a reason why it should not, given it is an Android software feature. But you never know …

14

Gemini PDA - Android / notification LED for missed calls / texts

« on: June 23, 2018, 11:48:43 am »

On further investigation, the Gemini does seem to blink a red light when the machine is closed and a text arrives.

Does the light keep on blinking? Or is it similar to the behaviour when a call comes in that it stops after a while? (I don't have SMS routed to the device yet).

15

Gemini PDA - Android / notification LED for missed calls / texts

« on: June 22, 2018, 08:09:17 am »

My old Samsung S4 has an RGB LED that is used for general notifications, like a pending message in some chat app or SMS, or a missed call, with different colors. It also shows charging state when connected to AC.

I sort of assumed that the power LED in the Gemini serves the same purpose, but I fail to find the Android setting for the notification LED. In the LineageOS (Android 6.0.1) build on the Samsung phone, there is Settings → Display & LEDs, where I can activate the notifications and also the automatic choice of colour. This is missing on the Gemini.

I do see the right LED lighting up during an incoming call and it continues to blink in some varying pattern for some time after the remote side hung up, for some time. Eventually, it goes dark. The Samsung phone nicely keeps on a slow faded blinking (with rather short times where the LED is on full brightness … easy on the battery, even there) until I dismiss the notification on the screen about the missed call.

Am I missing some settings about this normal notification LED? Is this feature not implemented yet? This is somewhat of a showstopper for using the device as a phone, especially since checking for missed calls/texts involves opening the clamshell. I hoped that this standard notification feature is present in _addition_ to the central group of LEDs that one can configure to specific callers, for example. Any ideas?

PS: I'd love to start using the Gemini with a Google-free LineageOS to begin with, but a fully working image seems some way off right now (like, with phone functionality).