Bluetooth reconnect in Song

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blickfangQ2
Posts: 4

Post by blickfangQ2 »

Hi there,

I recognized that when I’m coming back to my piano, fire up my iPad -> Synthesia I want to just come back to the song where I left it. That seems to work, but it sure says “oops no connection...”. I then have to go out of the song to the settings and tab on Bluetooth and then connect...

Is it possible to add a button to the “oops” message and there trigger the reconnection to stay in the song?

That would be awesome :)

Thanks Seb!
Nicholas
Posts: 13132

Post by Nicholas »

Good catch! I haven't seen (or tested) that screen in -- literally -- years. That's a great place to add a Bluetooth connections dialog. We'll try to get that into the next release.
blickfangQ2
Posts: 4

Post by blickfangQ2 »

Thank you so much!
I’m really looking forward to this!

Seb
monkel
Posts: 199

Post by monkel »

By now the feature has long made it to production, thanks for that (as I now connect via BT as well).

BUT, could it be extended to automatically reconnect? Or is that something Apple prevents?
Nicholas
Posts: 13132

Post by Nicholas »

As far as I know there isn't a way for an app to ask a device to reconnect automatically. Those types of settings are between you and the iPad's Settings app.
monkel
Posts: 199

Post by monkel »

I thought as much.

Does the Synthesia app request BT permissions? Then at least it might be possible according to what I read about the bluetooth-central permission set on

https://developer.apple.com/library/arc ... round.html

Might only be regarding BT LE devices though.
Nicholas
Posts: 13132

Post by Nicholas »

As a general rule, I try to make Synthesia as friendly a neighbor as possible. (This is why it will NEVER modify a single byte of a MIDI file.)

On Android, adding the kinds of Bluetooth permissions you mentioned also requires adding Location permissions because Bluetooth device names can be used in a sort of wardriving-style attack to discover a user's physical location. I'd rather keep Synthesia's attack surface as small as possible. The fewer permissions my code has and less mission-critical it is, the happier I am. If I mess something up with Bluetooth, I might drain your battery in a few minutes.

(This actually caused a bit of friction with The One Smart Piano Hi-Lite integration: for whatever reason, they decided their device shouldn't be allowed to pair. So to communicate with it, you have to use an ad-hoc, unpaired connection while scanning for Bluetooth devices. This may make sense for The One's own apps, but having Synthesia constantly scanning for devices that less than 1% of our users have doesn't make any sense. So, that one is wired-only for now.)

So, the short version is yes: Synthesia could ask for control over your device and pair/reconnect all sorts of things, but as a policy stance I don't want that kind of power.
monkel
Posts: 199

Post by monkel »

Understood. :)
monkel
Posts: 199

Post by monkel »

One optimization request: when I'm in a song and the connection is lost, I get the yellow trip alert. The options button takes me directly to the bluetooth connection screen and when done right back to the song position.

When I tap on a song and there is no connection, the song practice screen offers the connections button fix it. But - when reconnecting via this route I get taken back to the settings page instead of the song practice page after successfully reconnecting.

Suggestion: take me back to the song practice page here as well.
Nicholas
Posts: 13132

Post by Nicholas »

What is the song practice screen? Do you mean Free Play?
monkel
Posts: 199

Post by monkel »

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1CABF2F6-5F6D-438C-8C73-AE0F7069C50D.jpeg (45.58 KiB) Viewed 9273 times
I mean the screen where you can practice rhythm or melody.

It does say settings (so it does what it says), still it would be nice to get back here without having to reselect the song.
Nicholas
Posts: 13132

Post by Nicholas »

Hmm, this one might be a little trickier. That message on the song settings screen can be there for any number of reasons (and not just because of a recent device disconnect). If the device settings were a simple popover (like the Bluetooth settings screen), that wouldn't be so bad, but that would take a larger rework.
monkel
Posts: 199

Post by monkel »

Interesting - I haven't had it under any circumstances apart from "no available devices".

In which other situation would this be shown?
Nicholas
Posts: 13132

Post by Nicholas »

Oh, sorry for the confusion! That's the only reason it appears, but I meant you might actually have no available devices for a variety of other reasons. (One good reason is that you simply don't have any MIDI devices.)

My impression (from emailed questions, at least) is that Bluetooth devices are used less than 10% of time (vs. any other kind of digital piano connections), so sprinkling "Bluetooth Settings" buttons all over the interface has a chance to confuse/mislead more users than it helps.
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