Local Sensing

The leftmost top on the AIRS main screen gives you two options for local recording:

Pressing the green button will start a local recording without any selection of the sensors being recorded (the last configured selection is being used). This is similar to using the Quick Start shortcut (which you can create by pressing the Android Menu key in this tab and choosing the menu item Quick Start Shortcut). After pressing the green button, the user interface will exit and a local recording background service will be started (see more below).

When pressing instead the orange button, you are presented with the following screen:

This screen shows all the discovered sensors that the device offers for sensing. Each line displays the sensor symbol (e.g., Az) with the description for each sensor in brackets (e.g., Azimuth).

You can select each sensor for sensing by clicking the checkmark next to it. The selection is stored permanently when starting the sensing and will be available at the start of another sensing session. This allows for repeating the same experiment many times.

When hitting the menu key of your device, the following option menu is presented:

The options are:

• About: shows a brief About dialogue for help
• Start: starts the local sensing session – see further below for more information
• Info: shows a dialogue box with a list of all discovered sensors with description, unit of measurement as well as minimum and maximum expected value for the measurements, such as

• Select All: sets the check marks for all sensors as a shortcut
• Unselect all: removes the check marks for all sensors as a shortcut
• Shortcut: creates a shortcut on the launcher homescreen

You can quit the selection process without starting the local sensing by pressing the BACK key on your mobile.

Starting a Local Sensing Session

After hitting the Start item in the option menu or the green button in the Local tab of the main screen (see above), the current sensor selection is chosen for a local sensing session. This starts a AIRS service in the background, which performs the necessary measurements, stores the values in a file (see file structure below) etc.

You see an indication of the start of this service through an AIRS icon in the notification bar as well as through a brief Toast notification:

Showing the Current Sensor Values

It is possible to monitor the current local sensing session through the AIRS notification in the notification bar. You will see that the service is still running as well as the time of starting the service

Clicking on the notification starts the measurement window:

It shows the sensor symbols and their current value as well as the unit of measurement.

A brief click on any of the rows will display at brief Toast notification with information about how many values have been sensed so far as well as the latest measurement with its timestamp. Note that there might be more values than can be shown – the dialogue window scrolls! If the particular sensor supports historical values, another window will pop up, showing the most recent historical values with timestamps. Most values are shown along a timeline, while the track of GPS coordinates is shown in a Google map view (with the option to center on the current location or the last recorded location).

A long click on any of the rows allows for sharing a meaningful string of the recent measurement with, e.g., Facebook, via Bluetooth, Google+ or other sharing providers. Simply long click on a row and wait for the dialogue “Share AIRS Measurements via:” to appear. Here, you can select the provider to share with. Next, you will see the meaningful string inserted into whatever sharing you selected (e.g., within a post of Facebook). AIRS appends a signature with its market link under the meaningful string (you can remove the signature, if you like).

Pressing the Menu option of your device shows the following menu:

Apart from showing the About dialogue, you can Pause and Resume the measurements (this halts and resume the measurement threads) as well as Exit the local sensing session (this stops the service and closes down all resources used).

When pressing Exit, you will be presented with the following dialogue box:

Apart from confirming your selection with Yes or No, you can also select Yes & Share. This option exits the measurement and presents you with a dialogue box to share the measurement file via options like Bluetooth, GMail, eMail, Facebook or other software that you might have installed on your device.

For more information on supported sensors, format of the stored file and other internal workings of AIRS, see here.