Announcing MQTT/Android bridging app: Zanzito. Beta testers wanted!

Archive Zanzito for Android
82

About the battery: select it under Preferences->Sensors and then follow the example of HA sensor in the manual (towards the end)

83

but how? To test I should put in Eclipse mqtt
zanzito/<device-name>/<sensor-name>

?

from manual:
By accessing the Sensors preferences screen, you are presented with a list of hardware sensors provided by your phone. Simply select those you want tracked.

The information from the sensors are sent to your MQTT server with a message like the following:

zanzito/<device-name>/<sensor-name> <value>

84

also don’t know where to find the exact name of the phone (with the right CAPS)

85

First select Battery level from Preferences->Sensors and then go back to the main screen.

Then in HA you can add a sensor like the following (from the manual):

sensor:
  - platform: mqtt
    name: "Zanzito Battery"
    state_topic: "zanzito/<device-id>/battery_level"
    qos: 0
    unit_of_measurement: "%"

Where <device-id> is what you put under Preferences->MQTT Connection->Device name

Or, if you left “Device name” blank, you can recover the automatically generated name by using the Paho client and subscribing to zanzito/#

86

I see. I put pi3

Now in Eclipse mqtt (I use to test) I put
zanzizto/pi3/battery_level
but not showing in Eclipse

EDIT It works.

I have to touch to send …

87

No, the values are sent:

  1. Each time you connect/reconnect
  2. Every time the value changes (if “Instant updates” is enabled in the Prefs)
  3. At every “heartbeat” (if enabled in the prefs, default interval is 90 secs)
88

Ahh Ok understood.

And when are they RECEIVED, same logic?

89

In theory, HA receives the updates as soon as they arrive on the MQTT server. Actually there might be slight delays in the front-end.

90

Apologies, I may not been clear.

When is ZANZITO receiving? Or is it constantly polling the mqtt server?

91

Sorry, I didn’t understand the question.
Zanzito isn’t polling, that’s not the way MQTT works. It keeps an open connection and receives push updates whenever a message is published under one of the subscribed topics. So, network or server delays apart, it is instantaneous.

92

Hi.

Had a look at the app for recommending it to other but it falls on on big thing for me.
Why are you using and outdated model for giving permission to the application?
Why give your application SMS and camera if I have no intention of using this functionality?

93

Hi Landrash, sorry that this is a big thing for you, but it’s nothing that can’t be solved. I had already the intention to add support for the new permission management, I was just busy with making the whole thing work first.
In any case, did you know you can revoke any single permission from any app starting from Android 6.0? You could revoke SMS and camera permission to Zanzito, if you do not intend to use them: Zanzito should behave graciously. If not, let me know!

May I ask why this is important to you?

94

I always look for the minimal viable product. Having to use a workaround outside of the application limits the usage severely for less technically inclined users where I saw a use-case.I personally won’t have a problem here but the end-users I would recommend it towards would.

95

Why is Zanzito always disconnecting (I bought it)

96

Hi Claudio,
we should better specify the problem.
I setup official Zanzito groups on Telegram:
https://t.me/joinchat/AAAAAAymRHffr1_N5FZiVw
and whatsapp

maybe it’s faster than this forum.

in any case, try exiting completely from Zanzito (phone back button on the main screen, than confirm the exit) and re-launching and see if the problem persists.

97

I put TRACK LOCATION (in preferences). But now after restart it stays red in front page (location).

EDIT it went green after a minute or so

98

Good!
Yes, the Location gets green once a position fix could be established, it could take a while.

99

Hi,
I’m glad to announce that in the dev version of HA there’s a new camera component that is able to get still images directly from MQTT. Zanzito is fully compatible with this component, meaning that you can send images from Zanzito directly to HA (through MQTT) without resorting to external scripts.
This new component will be probably included in the next HA release.

1 Like
100

A new version of Zanzito is available through the Google Play Store.
I fixed a few glitches and tried to satisfy a few requests that came from the testers:

  • Added a password protected parental control over Preferences and connection stop;
  • The main notification is now optionally dismissible;
  • The gps location tracker is now compatible with the new HA component mqtt_json that will be included (I guess) in the next HA release. There will be no more need of the Owntracks emulation;
  • I revised and reorganized the Preferences.

Thanks again to all the wonderful people who are helping me in making Zanzito always better!

gl

1 Like
101

MrMep regarding the pictures from the security camera, will you add a widget for displaying it on the phone or something?

Otherwise did you already look up into the Tasker integration? So I can trigger some mqtt messages with shaking of flipping the phone or stuff like that :D.