Running the Android Estimote Demos example on my MotoX Developer Edition mobile phone (Android build 4.4.2), when i get to Notify Demo, click on the beacon item found, the next page shows "Last posted notification: Entered region". Then i go to Home and launch Chrome, everything is slow responding in the browser. Sound like the Internet is slowed down or virtually blocked by the ranging activities. Then i go back to Notify Demo and exit the ranging page, the browser Internet goes back to normal speed. Please explain why and offer a solution. (In fact, i have built an app based on this example, the app is to read something from Internet after beacon is found by the app and start ranging, but reading Internet is virtually dead)
Many appreciates
Weikang @ Pershing.com
Hi Weikang,
There shouldn't be any correlation between using the Estimote demo app and Chrome web browsing speed. However, there were some Android devices, on which Bluetooth connectivity would negatively affect Wi-Fi speed. Can you try with cellular connection?
Cheers.
Wojtek,
Thank you for your response. I do not think the issue is related to any particular browser, but the issue is significantly slowing down the Internet on devices. I used Chrome as example and I observed the issue on at least 2 different device brands (my device is MotoX developer edition, another device is my friend's, can't recall exact brand, maybe LG). It is possible that i did something wrong. Hence need your help.
Here are the steps to recreate the issue,
1. download Android-SDK-master.zip from https://github.com/Estimote/Android-SDK
2. extracted the Demo folder to a local development directory
3. imported \Android-SDK-master\Demos\src\main to Eclipse project
4. inserted estimote-sdk-preview.jar to the project's libs directory
5. clean/compiled the project
6. attached the mobile device then run the app on the device
7. The demo shows 3 buttons, "Distance Demo", "Notify Demo" and "Change Beacon's Minor Demo"
8. The issue only happens when clicking on Notify Demo -> clicking on an found beacon entry -> it is coming up a page showing "Entered region" when a beacon is found -> DON'T leave the page (do not click on back button etc) -> clicking on device's home button -> find a browser and try to browse www.cnn.com etc -> in my case, the site may or may not come up, if it comes up, clicking on any link, it is extremely slow or frozen. To come out from the condition, click on Home button again, goto Apps and resume Estimote Demo, the "Entered region" page will be resumed -> click on the back button to come out the Monitoring page ... reactivate the CNN site, then everything in the site goes back to normal speed.
Note: I discovered the issue before running above steps, I found when building an app which is based on the example. In the app, the issue happens when executing URL stream reader. That means it has nothing to do with particular browser.
Thank you
Weikang
Regarding " there were some Android devices, on which Bluetooth connectivity would negatively affect Wi-Fi speed. Can you try with cellular connection?". Unfortunately, for the experimenting device, i do not have cellular connection for now, only WIFI is available (either home WIFI or Hotspot). I understand Bluetooth might slowdown Internet under WIFI in certain degree as you mentioned, but it should not nearly freeze Internet. How do you explain when monitoring beacon, Internet goes frozen in WIFI environment?
The app i am building is for the people who may use WIFI.
As I mentioned above, I doubt it's a software problem with Estimote SDK. However, I've reported it to our developers - will let you know when they investigate it further.
Cheers.
Wojtek,
You seem right. I let our QA team tested Samsung Galaxy device in 4G connection instead of WIFI, there is no problem with the browser. But with WIFI, the Internet is virtually dead. If you have relative online document about bluetooth-WIFI blocking Internet issue, could you please forward me here, Thank you much.
Weikang
Hi there,
It's hard to find a specific documentation on the issue, because the problem seems to be distributed across a range of Android devices - but on a number of Android and mobile development forums you can find people reporting conflicts between Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity.
Cheers.