Android Ahoy!

After a long time wishing I had the time to develop an Android application, I finally got the chance. We are calling this app "WattDroid." The idea is quite simple, we will be pulling data from WattDepot to display energy usage data from specific dorm floors at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

When the user launches the application he or she will see a main menu where they can enter (through the settings) a URL that the application will pull the data from. Currently this will work only with WattDepot servers. Then the user will see a list of sources to choose from (sources are dorm floors). When they choose a location, the app will display a meter reading with various other data readouts.

The idea here is to keep it intuitive and consistent with other Android applications and of course fun for the users. I see this application as a way to bypass the need for an expensive energy meter as every student can now have their own meter display for free.

So far we have read the first 5 chapters of the excellent book Android and Me (A Pragmatic Bookshelf publication) and are thoroughly enjoying working tidbits of examples into our application. Some of the difficulties we have are the networking aspect, but that should be resolved shortly after this writing. We have already been able to get a list of sources (not from the server yet) into a list that displays a Toast type message. The next step will be to create another activity (Android view) to display the updated readings.

The development cycle is quite fun as well. I simply plug my Android phone into my computer and place it into debug mode, when I hit Run in Eclipse, it sends the APK over to my Android device instead of the AVD (Android Virtual Device/ the emulator), this keeps my Macbook at a lower temperature (sometimes it can get up to 180 degree Fahrenheit).

I will post screenshots next Tuesday of this application.