Do you know if it is possible to create an app for a Chromebook that is able to access and refresh/change your wireless connection through, say, Verizon?
You can get a list of the local network adapters with the chrome.system.network.getNetworkInterfaces() API, but as far as I know there is no way to change a connection.
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I'm looking for a way to managing and controlling IoT devices without the (constant) need for a remote server to be part in it and with a PWA instead of a native application on the managing device. The resulting goal is an IoT device that keeps working when a product eventually goes obsolete (no more server running/allocated) and having an application that has PWA benefits like always up-to-date, easy to replicated and cheaply hosted on something like S3.
As an example, let's say I have one or more IoT devices of different classes like an ESP8266 and a Raspberry Pi for instance. Just as with any new IoT device I want to add it to the network and from there on manage its state from an app. The app in this case is a PWA instead of full blown native app.
1) Traditionally, in the initial setup a native app would scan for wifi networks, connecting automatically to one that has the right name. Using PWA's we are limited to just the "state" of the network. So users would have to manually switch to the network of the newly connected IoT device. This is okay.
2) Next up, the user would need to enter his/her wifi credentials. There might be methods to set this up automatically using a native app, but I don't believe this is the case on a PWA. This, also, is okay.
3) The device then restarts, tries to connect to the network set up in (2). If set up correctly it should get its IP using DHCP. And now things get difficult. I want to 'discover' that network from my PWA. There used to be a way to retrieve the IP from a device using the WebRTC API. but that since has changed to show an obfuscated mdns that resolves to localhost. The ip leak would have allowed for a browser based network scan, but that is no longer possible. I always hoped that Android would default to using a users router as a DNS server, but that is not the case. The result is that simply using an mDNS isn't an option either. I do not want user having to check their router, install an app like fing or do anything else that disrupts the flow from a UX perspective.
Step (3) needs to run every time the app starts so you'd want something reliable. Scanning for devices isn't possible using a PWA, so I need to find another method. I was thinking of something like the way Docker containers can find each other in between networks (see etcd for example), using a predefined key that is shared during installation. The problem with this, is that it requires a remote server to store the IPs attached to that key. I don't want that.
Ideas on how to solve this are very much appreciated! I want to be able to offer a solution that would work even when WAN is out. That being said, I am aware that a connection to a remote server is needed if the end user would want to enable any voice assistant or wants to control a device from WAN.
After searching online most places have stated that it is required to have a server to build a VPN, but I was wondering if it is possible to do it and have mobile devices connect to a dummy server? Without actually having something constantly running on a server.
I am currently developing an app that will make users connect to a VPN that blocks access to all sites.
Define "server". If you are worried about cost of hardware/power, bear in mind that a server is just a computer that hosts applications or data for clients to access and interact with. I currently have a Dell latitude e6400 running as an owncloud server in my basement. If you need something for testing you could simply utilize whatever old hardware you have laying around to set up the server side for your app to connect to, and turn it on whenever you are testing the app.
I'm completely new to the iPhone, so this is a newbie question.
The web development environment I use at work is set up on Windows 7, running Tomcat as a web server. Web Apps are tested by pointing a browser to "localhost".
I've been asked to port a web front end to the iPhone. Since I need to use this same development environment I need to connect the iPhone to the PC via USB or Ethernet.
There is this answer:
"http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3132105/how-do-you-access-a-website-running-on-localhost-from-iphone-browser"
but I was hoping to do it without wireless.
Other questions I've researched are about iPhone development, the SDK, etc. I'm not developing iPhone code, only trying to get the iPhone Safari browser to access the IP address of the local PC, 192.168.xx.xx or whatever.
Seems like it should be simple, a matter of cabling?
it would be an issue of cabling... if the iPhone had an eternet jack :)
But the wifi connection is the only "network jack" the phone has that you can connect to your own network directly with, the 3G or CDMA port gets routed via your mobile phone company, nothing you can do about that. Hence the need for WiFi to access non-routable addresses, like ...
Another option would be to make your server internet-routable, like middapark said. Then you can access it via your mobile phone provider's network and the public internet and can do away with the need to use Wifi.
A third option is to create a VPN tunnel from your iPhone to your local network, again via your mobile phone provider's network and the public internet. But I have no expereince with doing that, so I can not give further advice there.
The problem is most likely because you're trying to get your iPhone to view an internal (i.e.: not internet viewable) network. (Address such as 192.168.0.0, 172.16.0.0 and 10.0.0.0 and are non-routable as far as the internet as a whole is concerned.)
As such, unless you can access your internal network via wifi (or you're prepared to expose the machine in question to the internet, in which case you'll need to use a different IP address) this isn't possible.
I have a requirement to promote 3G/GPRS over WiFi connectivity in the iPhone application I am developing. Please let me know if this is possible and if yes, how?
The problem is when I have a WiFi network which is available and connected but not logged in using Captive Portal, I cannot use that WiFi network to perform the tasks which require internet connection. What i have noticed is Reachability API detects the available WiFi but I cannot use it as I am not logged in and so I am not connected to internet using this WiFi hotspot until I login. So I want to use 3G/GPRS to perform the tasks requiring internet connectivity.
iPhone's default behavior is it uses WiFi when its available and if not then only 3G/GPRS.
So please let me know if both 3G/GPRS and WiFi are available but I am connected to internet not using WiFi but 3G/GPRS how to use 3G/GRPS to perform the tasks requiring internet connectivity.
Regards,
Third-party applications don't get control of where their data comes from. About all you're going to be able to do is ask your users to turn wifi off while your application does its thing. If you need to get back onto wifi after doing the initial data transfer, you could make some clever use of the iOS 4 multitasking and local-notification APIs: when your application enters the background, it could start a background-task handler (using -beginBackgroundTaskWithExpirationHandler: in your app delegate's -applicationDidEnterBackground:) to wait for the wifi connection to become unavailable, do its thing with the cell network, then create a UILocalNotification to tell the user it's okay to turn wifi back on again. That way, the user could get the benefits of whatever your app does and still keep the connection they started out on.
If you are creating an app which needs to access certain network resource(s) to function, then you should just ping, or try to connect to those resources directly instead of just depending on reachability for the decision. If you can't ping your server, then have the app do the same thing it would if reachability reported zero connectivity (even though it may not be).
For security reasons, Apple doesn't allow developer to do such settings pro grammatically, despite you GPRS network connection to achieve some purposes.
So I have a project I am working on, and I would basically like to send a basic yes/no command from the iPhone to a wifi enabled device that is also connectedto the network on the same router. This other device is not a computer, so I am wondering if I can still use Bonjour? In order to use Bonjour, do both of the communicating devices need to have some sort of a script installed and running that is allowing them to communicate? What would be the best way to connect to this device that is connected to the router, and then to send information/commands to it? I could really use some help finding a direction, because once I identify which tools I need to use, I can research them out and get it done (maybe). If anyone could offer any insight/suggestions whatsoever, it would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks in advance
Bonjour is a local service discovery protocol based on multicast DNS. Even if your device supports it you still need some piece of software on the device to listen to your commands.