Messages

1

Cosmo Communicator - Android / V19 Firmware Battery Life

« on: May 11, 2020, 08:29:01 pm »

I have resisted updating my Android firmware and am still on V19.

Up until a few days ago, I always got a day's battery life - even with CODI enabled.

Now if I leave it unplugged sitting there doing nothing (WiFi on as normal), I can pick up my phone and it isn't responding. Turns out the battery has drained and it has turned itself off. I estimate it is losing 25% charge in a little over 2 hours.

I haven't changed anything with the setup on the phone - nor have I installed any new apps.

Any ideas or is this just another Planet quality & reliability issue?

I reluctantly, but finally sold my Cosmo with losses around $500 ... and bought an oldish Sony VAIO P ... at least works as a computer andI need not worry about fixing a thousand things on my own ... it doesn't have any fake hardware inhibits preventing it delivering what is has capacity to  couldn't wait for till Cosmo & co. could get their acts right and starts delivering what was promised ... ever if they do,btw ...

2

Cosmo Communicator - Hardware / HDMI out not working

« on: March 20, 2020, 05:53:06 pm »

You know they made a very thought out super-duper intelligent product for equally super intelligent human beings like us who fail to understand simple thing that android is a super desktop operating system copmared to primitive os ike linuxes etc. and everything looks super cool on a external monitor on android, linux is made for alien who can do desktop comuting on a 7" screen with xray eyes ! they are even making new device versions with even better desktop grade android.

Yes, I agree that it is unfortunate that the HDMI cable doesn't work under Linux, but I think that the reason for not fixing this issue is a different one. A more probable reason is that the MTK driver for the cable is closed source and that Mediatek won't release the sources to Planet, and maybe to anyone else. So a driver might be developed only by reverse engineering the existing one, something that Planet might be not allowed to do.

Varti

only regret I have, rather planet should have, is that didn't planet thought about all those probabale issues beforehand and shouldn't have they fixed them out before going out and misleading people about and raising false expectations? who wants a 7" desktop to kill their eyes? why and what is making such half-baked products to flood market, ios being a prime examplle of it. why not be honest and tell people that nothing will work out of the box on linux or nothing will work properly ever on linux? I bought it primarily for desktop repllacement with a simple thought that I will be able to connect it with an external monitor and have a full desktop os. how many of us haven't had that thought?

Only other thing I can think about as a work around would be wireless display. I have used Microsoft WiDi Adapter with HDMI out with Cosmo and it works, a bit slugish. If Linux can support WiDi than may be we have an option for time being. I haven't installed and do not plan until it is soild for daily use out of box, can't and don't want to waste a lot of time fixing Linux as well as spoiling working Android and take a chance of bricking the whole device for no benefit in the end. Have had enough pain with mucking around and playing many such half baked concepts so very honestly I stay away from them allm even normal updates scare me having my Windows screved to BSOD a million times after updates that I completely disabale that, I had better live with few malware than living with crackpot quacks who claim to fix it and in turn get it worse.

3

Cosmo Communicator - Hardware / HDMI out not working

« on: March 20, 2020, 07:53:53 am »

Does anyone know if these DisplayPort devices work under any of the Linux distributions run on these devices?  I bought my device to do a bit of tinkering with Linux and programming on the go. It would be nice to occasionally be able to hook the device up to a larger screen. When I asked PC about their own HDMI converter, they confirmed what had been discussed in the Gemini forums about it only working under Android.

You know they made a very thought out super-duper intelligent product for equally super intelligent human beings like us who fail to understand simple thing that android is a super desktop operating system copmared to primitive os ike linuxes etc. and everything looks super cool on a external monitor on android, linux is made for alien who can do desktop comuting on a 7" screen with xray eyes ! they are even making new device versions with even better desktop grade android.

4

Cosmo Communicator - General Discussion / Cosmo as a daily driver - experiences/review

« on: March 01, 2020, 05:25:15 am »

I've now been using Cosmo as a daily driver for a week now. I wanted to write a short summary on my experiences and things that I've picked up especially since I came from Nokia N900 (Maemo). .... I've been more or less waiting for a device like this ever since E90 just became too troublesome (Symbian....) to use, and I can now finally retire my N900 (or rather, keep it as a backup device).

Anyone coming from Motorola LapDock/WebTop experience, which was very similar in concept to Cosmo, i.e. Android on top of Linux or vice versa ... it did fail though, yet it was a pioneering effort of that time ... some comparisons might be interesting

5

Cosmo Communicator - Android / Sleep stops music and streaming

« on: February 29, 2020, 05:06:47 am »

yes, allowed in background ... I have however kept the front display (CODI) turned off, could that be a reason?

I already have also disable CoDi from Cosmo setting, for me it's not happening. I mainly use brave browser for streaming media from variouos sources.

It worked with CODI turned on, i.e. whenever Cosmo goes to sleep, this programs needs to be on CODI or may be I should switch off their notifications and check again. But this is a flaw for devices with two screens and should be addressed by PC or may be Android is not yet mature enough to seamlessly handle two or more on device displays and may be more external HDMI/USB-C/DP displays in near future to come

6

Cosmo Communicator - Android / Sleep stops music and streaming

« on: February 28, 2020, 05:06:40 pm »

I tried all Duraspeed options, turned it on, turned off, no change ... my Cosmo still remains stubborn and stops all streaming music as soon as going to sleep

Does your players app have some settings similar to "allow media playing backround" etc?

yes, allowed in background ... I have however kept the front display (CODI) turned off, could that be a reason?

7

Cosmo Communicator - Android / Sleep stops music and streaming

« on: February 28, 2020, 04:28:58 am »

How have you got Duraspeed set?

Settings -> Duraspeed

I think it was already set as default disapled on some of android firmaware updates between Vxxxxx15 and Vxxxx19

If it is switched on you need to switch to allow the apps you want to run in the background or they will switch off as described.

I tried all Duraspeed options, turned it on, turned off, no change ... my Cosmo still remains stubborn and stops all streaming music as soon as going to sleep

8

Cosmo Communicator - Android / Sleep stops music and streaming

« on: February 26, 2020, 04:39:07 am »

+1 for cheecking how player app itself behaive

I use Bose bluetooth speaker with browser and netradios. Everything works just fin (exclude cop car leds on rocker switch, can't disable those)

I use 1.fm and DI.fm apps (basically net radios) and they both stop as soon as Cosmo goes into sleep mode

9

Cosmo Communicator - Linux / Beta Linux Testing

« on: February 25, 2020, 05:01:49 am »

Can someone please make and post some videos with this latest Linux stuff ... there is nothing on the web yet about it and results point to months old links, want to see how this Android and Linux lives side by side and if anyone did manage to get it over the external monitor it would be even better ... if someone could use just USB monitor

I will post a video in the next couple of days.

Video of Linux running on the Cosmo. Warning, the file is 183mb.

 https://1drv.ms/v/s!Ag51c2D8JaCgtg0St-k...MngY4L?e=si9gYC

video explains the experience and thanks for that.... with a Bluetooth mouse it should be awesome .. does Bluetooth & 4G/Phone or at least  4G Modem work, all together in linux? and off course, audio?

10

Cosmo Communicator - Hardware / HDMI out not working

« on: February 25, 2020, 04:46:34 am »

In the end, I bought a DisplayLink HDMI adaptor. They're not cheap, but they work 100% of the time. Essentially they have a little display chip in them. Again - nothing spectacular. Just 1080p, but if reliability is what you need for video out ,  are your only option.

Could you please care to quote which make and model? Mr eBay shows all with USB A connector and not USB C

11

Cosmo Communicator - Android / Sleep stops music and streaming

« on: February 22, 2020, 11:39:56 pm »

I guess I have explored all settings but as soon as Cosmo goes into sleep mode, all playback stops which became very annoying for me. I have tried with 1.fm and di.fm and as soon as display goes blank in sleep mode, it stops playing until display is back on again. I have increased sleep time to 30m but it is not a solution. I enabled background data for both apps, even tried to stream them from web browsers with same result.

I guess some settings are not available on Cosmo android yet to stop this annoying behaviour or removed or disabled.

12

Cosmo Communicator - Android / PSION emulator on Cosmo/Gemini

« on: February 22, 2020, 11:31:06 pm »

About a year ago I knocked up an experimental configuration for the DOS-based SIBO "emulator" that allows a Gemini to think it's a Series 3a. I don't know if anyone has tried it on a Cosmo but you're welcome to give it a shot.

It has a few quirks, most notably around keyboard mapping, but it does work. Because the "emulator" is a 386-based development environment rather than a true ARM emulator it does mean that a lot of third-party apps won't run if they use C or assembler calls, but those that are pure OPAs work fine as do all of the built-in applications. Sharing files or data between the emulated Psion and other machines, even the host Gemini, is tricky because all you can really do is use the Android file system to drill down into the Psion's virtual drives and move stuff around. But if all you want is stand-alone spreadsheets this might work well.

To make the most of it you'll need to invest in a registered copy of Magic DosBox for Android, which was £3.20ish the last time I checked. It will work with the free version, but setting it up is much much easier with the full version.

The setup files are at https://gemini.kevreilly.uk/S3aGemini.zip and a copy of the documentation is at https://gemini.kevreilly.uk/emulator.txt

One of the discussion threads on the Facebook Gemini/Cosmo group is at https://www.facebook.com/groups/17746201995...05576219743418/

You may noticed that there's also a Series 5 "emulator" on that web page but it is very experimental and unsupported so I'd steer clear of it unless you're morbidly curious. It's slow as molasses and requires you to obtain and set up a working Windows 95 environment under Magic DosBox. In all honesty it's not worth the effort. It looks cool for about five minutes but it's really just a novelty.

The Series 3a environment on the other hand is quite usable. I still play Fairway on it from time to time. Certainly for running the Sheet application it should be great. The default installation runs at 640 x 264 pixels, so you even get more screen estate for your spreadsheets than on the original hardware.

If anyone decides to have a play, let me know how this works on the Cosmo. I've only ever seen it running on Gemini hardware.

I tried the Magic DosBox version and it worked out-of-the box. I was able to launch Sheets on full screen and it seemed awesome. I haven't bothered yet to map the keys or mess around further, just used BT mouse and inbuilt keyboard for a test tide. Will explore further.

Some photos

13

Cosmo Communicator - Hardware / USB-C

« on: February 22, 2020, 06:12:43 pm »

What you good people do get audio out of HDMI cable? I haven't found anything but heard that while using USB-C HDMI cable, audio is not rooted to phone speakers and you get muted if your monitor has no audio.

I searched and have discovered a temporarily a solution to audio problem is to use a HDMI to VGA out adapter with 3.5mm audio out and connecting to monitor or display via VGA.

Now I have some more questions
(1) As there is no USB style eject for HDMI, how should it be disconnected from Cosmo & Monitor properly? Should monitor be turned off and just pull out the cable from Cosmo or first pull out the cable from Cosmo or should Cosmo be closed (sleeping and then slowly disconnect the cable?) Aim is to avoid any possible issues which may be arising out of it
(2) What will be maximum supported display resolution if HDMI is connected to say 4K monitor in Android and/or in Debian?

14

Cosmo Communicator - General Discussion / Compare to webtop

« on: February 22, 2020, 12:50:26 am »

My apologies well in advance for asking, in this time of advanced age, but why there is no mention or comparison with long forgotten Motorola Webtop & Lapdock ? There might be some users coming from that experience and what Gemini/Cosmo is doing now is what exactly Motorola tried to do a few years back. Even Canonical's Ubuntu Phone concept too is very similar. We can learn something from both of them.

15

Cosmo Communicator - Hardware / Stylus

« on: February 21, 2020, 06:11:18 am »

Is there any stylus which works flawlesssly to draw on cosmo? Any gentleman or lady of this forum may please share very kindly some of their valuable thoughts on this stylus thing if anyone have used a one. Your kind guidance will be very much appreciated with a million thanks in advance for sparing a few moments of your experience. Thank you thank you very much to all great experts of the forum.