Messages

1

Cosmo Communicator - General Discussion / Re: QR Code Scanning

« on: February 12, 2023, 08:45:48 am »

QR codes simply DO NOT WORK on or from my Communicator
I have tried pointing the camera at them, pressing the button ... & I get a nice picture of the QR code ... that's it.

That's.... fully expected? Personally, I would like to beable to take a picture containing any barcode, unless I chosoe otherwise.
Anyway, you need a separate application, since Cosmo seems to use unadultered camera appliation - I am using Opera and its built in 2D code scanning ability (since I am using Opera anyway)

2

Cosmo Communicator - CoDi / Re: Control CoDi on/off

« on: June 22, 2022, 01:31:47 pm »

That's excellent, this is something I desperately needed to make my Cosmo productive as a mobile phone.

3

General Discussion / Re: Android Work Profile and Sandboxing Apps

« on: March 23, 2022, 08:47:05 am »

I am using island on my (non-Planet) tablet and it works as expected, no major problems. On my Cosmo I do not need the sandboxing, but just out of curiosity, I tried both shelter and island and while they work, reclaiming resources (i.e. killing sandboxed apps) kept killing my mainland termux session (no matter what I did) so I uninstalled them.

Another way of separating would be to create multiple android users (available on Cosmo, but probably not on 7.* Gemini), but this has two major drawbacks - switching the users takes some time (half a minute or so), and background processes of the other user(s) keep running and occupying the RAM, even if I use the other user only occasionally.

4

Cosmo Communicator - General Discussion / Re: IRC/Matrix/Telegram/Discord chat rooms for the Astro/Cosmo/Gemini

« on: February 23, 2022, 07:14:39 am »

Yay for decentralization :-(.

And what's worse, many of these boards won't be indexed by [insert your favourite big brother web crawler here]. So if there is a problem and a solution is found, other users won't find it. Sigh. That's why I prefer OESF.

(Unless someone creates a USENET group :-))

5

Cosmo Communicator - General Discussion / Re: Keyboard stops working

« on: February 23, 2022, 03:36:03 am »

It happened to me today, for the first time - and I use Cosmo daily, since I got it for several months ago.
The symptoms are exactly the same, I opetned some app  and  suddenly keyboard ws not working. I was able to display software keyboard and with the help of it force-stop every system application in hope restarting them would help, but no results. Holding Esc worked though and popped out restart dialogue and I could restart the Cosmo.

I am no aware of anything beyond ordinary, I just (reluctantly)  installed some apps yesterday (Bolt Food, to be pricese). And I have automatic updatees off and Google Play Store disabled.

6

Cosmo Communicator - General Discussion / Re: Some notes and impressions

« on: January 09, 2022, 07:26:46 am »

Regarding the keyboard, my Cosmo has, in my opinion a noticeably better keyboard than my Gemini, so my experience differs from yours. On the Gemini the keys were a bit wobbly and unreliable, lest I hit them dead center. On the Cosmo, I initially had a similar issue with the space bar, which would only register if I hit the center third of it, but I fix that by putting a small piece of a thin self adhesive label under the key cap (like so: https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?topic=34914). For a while, my Cosmo typed a double 5. I removed a few key caps in that area, to make sure the rubber mat was clean and flat. Whatever I did, solved the issue, as it was gone after reinstalling the key caps.

For the completeness - finally the "double L" and stuck "A" bothered me enough to look into  the issue - there was a tiny fleck of dirt beneath the "L" and cleaning it makes the key work perfectly. The "A" however, after removing and cleaning was not stuck only sometimes after opening the lid, but half the time, which made typing almost impossible. Fotrunately, I have a spare, though damaged keyboard on my Gemini, so I swapped the keys - and now the "A" on my Cosmo works perfectly  (I hope it won't keep falling out - but then I have a lot of other replacement keycaps available, though with a different letters on them).

The Cosmo "A" keeps getting stuck on the Gemini as well, so obviously it is the  keycap itself that is problematic (maybe a bit thicker than necessary?).

However, what surprised me was that the Cosmo mat is white (or white-ish), while the Gemini is black. If I am bored some day, I might try to replace the Cosmo mat  with the Gemini's one, to see if the typing improves (it is not bad - but the Gemini was a bit better).

7

Cosmo Communicator - CoDi / Re: CODI battery life

« on: December 04, 2021, 01:41:24 am »

• airplane mode (i.e. the red LED is on), codi off, everything else off: 95%
• airplane mode (i.e. the red LED is on), codi off, wifi ON, everything else off: 93%
• wifi ON, mobile network 4G ON, codi off: 94%
• airplane mode (i.e. the red LED is on), codi  ON, wifi off, everything else off: 78%

When the airplane mode is ON, a red LED on the CODI lights on, and I haven’t found a way to turn it off - I have a bad feeling it drains the battery a bit, though the numbers are close enough to the measuring error to be conclusive (compare 2 & 3 above).

And have an uppdate to that - for the record, you can turn the red LED off with

# echo 610 > /proc/aw9524_led_proc

You need root, and  this number turn off all the LEDs on the cover (including the rocker ones). Taken from https://github.com/gemian/gemian/wiki/LEDs .

Unfortunately, you cannot issue that command when the Cosmo is closed, so I configured a Macrodroid action (Shell script, rooted) and  bound it to the action Flip Device (the only one that seems to work relilably).

And I got, after 12 hours of discharging:

• airplane mode, the red LED is off, codi off, everything else off: 96%

This is not quite comparable to the previous numbers, since the battey is older by a month or so, and I made additional tweaks and installations (not power related, though), but it still suggests the LED consumes about 1% per half day (± 1% uncertainty). This is not very significant, but I am going to keep my Macrodroid action on.

8

Cosmo Communicator - General Discussion / Re: Some notes and impressions

« on: November 11, 2021, 10:03:04 am »

As far as I know the LED's on the outside of the Cosmo lid works as follows: The quick start guide that came with my Cosmo, says the LED above the camera hump is a 'Wireless Indicator LED'. I have occasionally seen lit in magenta during phone calls, which I think tells me I only have 2G coverage at the moment. I have seen other people say it's magenta when Mobile Data isn't working, which I suppose it isn't on 2G, so that might be the actual meaning. It turns on in red when the Cosmo is in flight mode and in blue when the mobile hotspot is on (with the lid closed).

[...]

Then there are the two LED's on the fingerprint rocker itself. Their behavior seems a bit erratic at times. As far as I understand, when the CoDi wakes up in its locked state, both are supposed to be red. After unlocking the CoDi with the fingerprint reader, both of them turn blue. When the CoDi is enabled, but sleeping, they occasionally light up in either red or blue, seemingly for no reason.

This differs from my experience - the LED above the camera shines red iff the airplane mode is on and the CoDi is turned off and the Cosmo is closed (regardless of the Wifi status, as long as the airplane mode has been selected before switching the wifi on).

And initially there were no lights on the rocker (with CoDi off and Cosmo closed); but then I played with it, installed some packages, disabled some intrusive built-in ones, modified a lot of settings etc... and now those two LEDs shine red whenever the Cosmo is closed (and CoDi turned off), and I can't find any reason why. So by default I have three red LEDs shining whenever I close the lid for the night. Fortunately it does not seem to drain too much battery - certainly much less than with the CoDi enabled.

9

Cosmo Communicator - General Discussion / Some notes and impressions

« on: November 06, 2021, 01:21:42 am »

Since October 2021, I am a (proud?) owner of a new Cosmo Communicator. SInce I had Gemini PDA for two years or so, these notes will be written with an implicit reference to the Gemini. This is going to be a random list of notes without any overall structure.

I specifically wanted a US keyboard layout - when the package came, I unwrapped it to reveal an US plug charger - well, I had not thought about this. But nevermind, I was not planning to use the original charger anyway… Then I turned my attention to the second box I received, almost as big as the one with Cosmo. And  in that box, carefully padded, completely unordered, was an EU  plug charger… kudos to the
Planet for their foresight.

Anyway, I am using (since the Gemini time) this beast:  https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000298379442.html and it charges the Cosmo (and Gemini) maybe by ⅓ slower than the original one, but the Cosmo gets significantly less hot during the charging (random non-turbo old USB chargers charge it in many, many hours).

Ledison does not seem to work at all. I could see a use of flashing patterns on the CODI (without the CODI running) for some announcements, but  this is not something I cannot live without.
There seem to be no manual describing various LEDs on the CODI anyway.

CODI makes it OK (not great) to use the Cosmo as a phone in one-handed operation. However, there are other situations where you really need to use the *smart* phone aspects one handed - most prominent using GPS and a navigation software of your choice when going somewhere, but these days also buying public transport tickets (which you can do while walking to the bus stop, holding your average Android phone in one hand - but not with the Cosmo), showing QR codes everywhere (loyalty cards,boarding passes, COVID pass…) etc.

What I miss is a kind of VNC-like software running on the CODI, mirroring the main screen. Even if scaled or panning and in slow frame rate - for emergency or casual use, I can see it quite convenient. Failing that, is there a picture browser on the CODI? That would help at least with  the QR codes. However, I guess this is moot with the development of the Astro Slide (Planet should have opensourced the CODI software, really - after all, they are aiming a bit at the geek be and Linux community).

The keyboard, compared to my previous Gemini, feels a bit inferior - the keys have a little bit more “plastic” feel,  they are less “springy”, almost as if the membrane were a bit thinner. While on Gemini the keys produced a dull “thud”, on Cosmo they produce a plastic “click” which contributes to a slightly toyish and cheaper feel.
But the keyboard works well, only sometimes I see double “l” letter, and the “a” sometimes stays stuck after opening the lid. Both are infrequent enough not to bother me much so far. Obviously, the build  quality deteriorated - or I had an exceptionally high quality Gemini specimen?

After upgrading the firmware to v25, upgrading CODI took several tries, all on Airplane mode & Do not disturb - but finally it flashed the firmware OK.

Unfortunately, battery usage (Settings→Battery→⋮→Battery usage) says
“Battery usage data isn’t available” and I have no idea how to fix that. This means I do not see which applications drain the battery. I made sure
settings_battery_display_app_list (in Settings→System→Advanced→Developer options→Feature flags) is on, but it did not help.
GSam Battery Monitor seems to work, though.

With CODI enabled, if the COSMO is closed, CODI turns off its display in a minute or so of no activity. However, CODI kept turning itself on again every few minutes - the culprit was BatteryBot, obviously it was updating its notification every few minutes (apparently, when the battery level changed). Disabling notifications for BatteryBot solved the issue. Anyway, BatteryBot is somewhat unnecessary anymore, finally it is possible to turn on the percentage indicator without any helper apps.

As with the Gemini, the Navigation bar buttons are GIANT. There is now an option to hide the bar, but since the button *are* useful, I’d like to keep them. Setting Settings→System→Advanced→Developer options→Smallest width to some large number helps, but then the font inside Agenda gets comparably smaller. And if I set the size of the buttons to be comfortably small, the Agenda day numbers will be unreadable (in the Monthly view), and Control-arrows change the font size only in the left column…. sigh. In the end I settled down on 508 as a compromise.
Previously (on the Gemini) I used SecondScreen overscan to hide part of the buttons, but it has its own problems - like hiding the rightmost edge of fullscreen apps.

10

Cosmo Communicator - General Discussion / Re: Screen "flickering" in browsers and under load

« on: November 02, 2021, 02:24:04 am »

I confirm this behavious, however in my case it is not a screen flickering, but the background picture momentarily appearing when switching apps - I am using the KISS lancher with a black background, but the original picture is still there unchanged.

I guess setting the background  to a completely black PNG would help (but so far I could not have been bothered). Or even this: https://github.com/rocboronat/null-black-wallpaper

11

Cosmo Communicator - CoDi / Re: CODI battery life

« on: November 01, 2021, 01:16:56 am »

[...] MacroDroid, but the silver button does not produce any event (even with the lid open), and fingerprint gestures do not work. I can bind an action to a volume up/down (i.e. the rocker switch) button, or a flip-over trigger, or a shake trigger, but all of them work only with the lid open

Update: I found out filpping the device works, and it is about the only kind of reliable trigger. I woud prefer the silver button, failing that, the volume button, but if nothing else, flipping the device two or three times as the trigger might be usable. I am testing it with the flashlight toggle and speaking out the battery level and current time (and it is so convenient that I will likely keep the speek-out anyway).
What mislead me was that the phone seems not to wake up, until you press a volume button  - so the correct sequence of events is flip the cosmo (twice, I configured waiting for the second flip) and press a volume button, and it will perform the action.
For the record, shaking the device seems much less reliable.

Now, if only there were a way to toggle CODI without delving into the settings or statusbar...

12

Gemini PDA - Android / Re: Trouble with WiFI with one SSID, but multiple transmitters ? Android issue ?

« on: October 26, 2021, 07:09:55 am »

Update after 2 something years: after thoroughly unpleasant experience with the UPC's customer service, like *completely* ignoring my reports for months until *I wrote a f*ing paper letter to them*, then asking several times for some details that I already provided them and ignoring my replies and asking the same details again and again, finally under pressure confirming they've received my previous e-mails (but apparently not reading them), and then... nothing happened for months. (sorry for the rant)

And then, suddenly, Wifree started to work and keeps working for maybe half a year by now, after almost 2 years of not working. Not that I need it that much, and I certainly *do not* recommend UPC if you have a reasonable other choice. And it does not solve the Android unable to select an AP issue.

13

Cosmo Communicator - CoDi / Re: CODI battery life

« on: October 26, 2021, 05:27:50 am »

Actually, I tried (I am still trying) to figure out of it is possible to turn CODI on/off when the lid is closed (under Android). So far, nothing seems to work - I am trying various "automating" applications, so far the most promising one is MacroDroid, but the silver button does not produce any event (even with the lid open), and fingerprint gestures do not work. I can bind an action to a volume up/down (i.e. the rocker switch) button, or a flip-over trigger, or a shake trigger, but all of them work only with the lid open - as soon as I close the lid, MacroDroid stops noticing them (even with the "work with screen off" option on). I suspect there is some dark wizzardry going on when the lid is closed.

14

Cosmo Communicator - CoDi / CODI battery life

« on: October 25, 2021, 06:48:58 am »

Since I have read a lot of negative views on CODI and its unusability, and since I am considering using Cosmo as my main phone, I decided to measure (unscientifically) the impact of several settings on battery life.

The software is already somewhat customized: the Cosmo is rooted, however I am booting a non-root partition. I installed KISS launcher, Opera, termux, F-Droid, set up airmail (without automatic synchronization), Greenify (in non root mode without ADB permissions). Ledison is disabled (does not seem to be working, anyway).

In Settings→Cosmo Settings I turned on “Switch OFF cover display on power down”, though the description is a bit confusing (does the “Power down” refer to powering off the Cosmo, or just putting it to sleep mode?).

In Setting→System Developer options→Background check I turned off F-Droid.
In Play Store, I turned off Autoupdate and everything begining with auto-*

I also disabled Wifi control for all the applications  in Settings→Apps & notifications→Special app access.

Standby Intelligent Power Saving has been on, bluetooth, NFC has been turned off. Greenify was used to kill all the background processes just before closing the lid.

Codi ON means the CODI has been turned on from the notification area; the display has been kept off (probably) all the time, there were no incoming calls nor SMS.

Cosmo has been fully charged and after 12 hours of rest (closed lid), I looked at the remaining battery pecentage.

• airplane mode (i.e. the red LED is on), codi off, everything else off: 95%
• airplane mode (i.e. the red LED is on), codi off, wifi ON, everything else off: 93%
• wifi ON, mobile network 4G ON, codi off: 94%
• airplane mode (i.e. the red LED is on), codi  ON, wifi off, everything else off: 78%

When the airplane mode is ON, a red LED on the CODI lights on, and I haven’t found a way to turn it off - I have a bad feeling it drains the battery a bit, though the numbers are close enough to the measuring error to be conclusive (compare 2 & 3 above).

The results when CODI is on frankly suck (I actually repeated it twice, to be sure) - instead of about 5%, it drained 22% of the battery in the same timespan. This suggests either some serious power saving issues, or the CODI CPU&chipset is more power hungry than expected or incapable of deep sleep. At this point, Planet would have done better if they connected the cover display as a secondary screen of the mail CPU, not a separate CPU & OS - but then again, it is probably not possible with the Mediatek (or other common) chipset. Perhaps a (scaled down with some circuitry?) copy of the main screen would have been doable - or perhaps not.

Anyway, this isprobably moot with the Astroslide.

15

Gemini PDA - General Discussion / Some notes about the GEMINI

« on: October 24, 2021, 09:25:25 am »

I started to write these notes when I received my Gemini PDA in 2019, then I kind of stopped. Recently (fall 2021) I unearthed the notes (even though unfinished) and I am posting them just for the sake of historical interest, to have them online and searchable - though I guess the notes about the keyboard are equally valid for Cosmo and Astroslide (I have a Cosmo now).

These are just some unorganized notes about Gemini PDA. It's not a review, just a collection of my impressions and misgivings.

I am reasonably satisfied with the device. though there are some unexpected gripes.

Hardware


Removing the cover to insert sim and microSD - seriously? Having to use a separate piece of metal to open the unit? Though I could probably use a flat screwdriver.

Keyboard is nice. Size of the keys is comparable to those of Asus Eee 701 fame, though the Gemini keys feel a bit more wobbly and less "springy" - it's not better, not worse, just different. It's not really quiet, though - at least compared with my old Sony VAIO P.

Open display has only one fixed position. This kind of sucks. I expected a notebook-like adjustable hinge. Failing that, I am sometimes missing the 90° position.

There are no raised bumps on the f and j keys, for tactile feedback.

More than once I wished for keyboard backlight. Unfortunately, the keys are compressed by the screen when closed, thus I am reluctant to use fluorescent paint on them.

For the same reason I am reluctant to make bumps at the f&j keys (glueing something or marking it with a hot soldering gun)

Software

I am disappointed with Linux support - I expected a fully working device, with X11. Proper open computer would allow us to compile the kernel easily, boot from SD, etc... Even with binary blobs it would be better than using libhybris and/or one fixed precompiled kernel version. At this point, Planet could have created a (perhaps bluetooth) keyboard only with a groove or cradle to put your 6" rooted Android phone into and it would be an even better and more usable combination than the Gemini is.

Currently, Planet seems to aim towards recreating Psion experience (see Airmail. Data, App bar), which is.... OK I guess, if you are a former Psion user. And it makes sense to run the software on top of Android, you get a well known almost mature OS with a ton of applications. However, it deviates from the original expectation of an open Linux machine.

Launcher

Built in launcher is OKish. But Nova launcher, once properly configured is much, much better. With Nova launcher. though, you do not need the App bar.

Both KISS launcher and TUI launcher are quite nice and well suited for Gemini, but they are not well integrated with the keyboard - e.g. you cannot use the keyboard to cycle through application matches in the TUI launcher (one would expect to use TAB for this...)

Keyboard input

The layout copies the old Psion one. It is reasonably OK if you type predominantly English texts, though the need to use Fn combination to type the apostrophe is less than optimal.

Unfortunately, you cannot easily change the  layout - though there are ways to modify the Gemini keyboard app, but this is tedious and requires some skills. Planet should have opensourced the keyboard application.

By holding a key. you can input several variants of the letter - e.g. holding s pops up a dialogue where you can select one of ßšşŝ. Nice touch having the ŝ, but OTOH long pressing h does not allow you to select ĥ. And there is no ś. You can choose the letters either by tapping it on the screen, or by typing the number displayed. So far so good, for an occasional character this is OK (but totally unsuitable for typing in your accented language).

However, this means long pressing d in vim cannot be used to quickly delete a whole region anymore. What's even worse, these long presses emit Shift, Left Arrow, the accented letter - which again, does not produce the desired effect in vim. Why not generate backspace+the accented letter?

And there is an inconsistency, e.g. š, ň, č is the second letter, but ž the first one, and there is no way to type ľ.
The order of diacritic marks should have been consistent, and a compose key would be preferable to a long press (why not reuse e.g. standalone press of right shift to be a compose? see xcape from the X11 world).

What Gemini desperately needs is an input method that would e.g. in German mode produce ä when the keys a e are entered within a (short) time span, ss would produce ß, etc. In e.g. Croatian mode, dj would produce đ, cj ć, cx č etc. In Danish mode, aa would produce å, ae would produce æ.

There are such applications for Android, but only for Korean Hangul, and of course not configurable ones. Almost all existing keyboard input methods are aimed towards touchscreens.