QRite – QR Code Generator

UPDATE: Tanushri recently won a LG G Watch watch in PyCon 2015 (thanks to Google), so we have a watch to start implementing the smartwatch feature. The app will now be free on Google Play as well, as we don’t need money anymore 🙂

I had recently bought a smart-watch (SmartQ Z) and as mentioned in some of my previous posts, I started playing around and creating my own watch-faces. One fine day, I got an idea to put my contact details on the watch screen as a widget showing a QR code (with my vCard encoded) so that if someone asks me for my details, I could just flash my wrist and they could scan and save my contact info. Geek lvl over 9999.

So, I spent some a few evenings with a friend, re-inventing the wheel and created first my QR Code generation app. It was mostly an Android revision for us with some UX/UI brainstorming done now and then. The goal was to make it simple. Very simple. And clean. With just the necessary customizations given to the user. This is how it looks till now:

You can check out the beta attempt, get some more details and screenshots here : http://qrite.suchakra.in/ Its an open source app and if you want to use it or want to contribute to the source code, head over to this Github repo. The source is not so rosy and glorious considering I just focused on functionality and gave exactly 0 about anything else  It needs some cleanup for sure and it is indeed the next step.

So there are some features already available as configuring color, size and recent contact details for which QR code was generated. And some features are to be added, such as digitizing an already available QR code using your camera and ‘scanning’. The major feature, “Send to Smartwatch” is also left. The plans are to support Android Wear, Pebble and generic android (such as SmartQ Z) platforms. However, I don’t have Android Wear/Pebble for which this could be most useful. If you want to donate a Android Wear or Pebble (if you have one extra) or some money for me to get those, or if you just want to support open source development, you can consider buying the app from this Play Store link (it will be made free as soon as all features are completed). You can also send a donation by clicking 

Just FYI, my goal is approx USD $130 (price of cheapest LG W100 watch). Feedback and suggestions for the app are welcome.

TL;DR – Just another QR code generation app. Open sourced. Smartwatch integration in progress. Donate money for Android Wear/Pebble or submit code if you want.

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Some Cool Retro Watchfaces

These holidays, I was refraining from spending huge sums on stocking gadgets I don’t need. But (un)fortunately, I ended up buying a Nexus 5, a Moga Hero controller and a cheap smartwatch. So what do you do when you get an Android device? Exactly! Start hacking on it – root, custom ROMs, custom kernel, cool apps! So, my experimentation started with the SmartQ Z Smartwatch I had bought. For the price (CAD $91, including shipping from China) this was an irresistible piece of tiny Android to start tinkering around with. It packs a 1GHz Ingenic processor (MIPS) – JZ4775, 512MB DDR RAM and 4GB flash. All of this with a tiny 1.54 inch screen with a 240×240 resolution. The latest firmware supplied by the vendor is based on Android 4.4 with a custom launcher. It is a very hacker-friendly device and came with ‘su’ out of the box 🙂 Though its a bit old (2013 launch) and the manufacturer seems to have abandoned the development on this, for the price, its a pretty impressive piece of tech on your hand.

I decided to make my own watchfaces with custom features and more inspiring UI than the watchfaces provided in the watch. Also, the hidden agenda was to check out the new Android Studio. As with everything Chinese, the SDK and docs for the Smartwatch were in Chinese! But fortunately, after surfing through XDA Developers forums, I found a link to the English docs on their website to refer to the weather APIs that I needed to use. With moderate efforts, I was able to make the following watch faces :

    

They are actually developed as widgets and the launcher apparently sees if the AppWidgetProvicer class you use starts with the string “WatchFace”. If this is the case, it simply puts that widget along with the custom watch faces in the menu.

If you own a similar watch/with similar screen dimensions, you can try installing the apps or use the source code for building your own cool watchfaces. I really wish I had an Android Wear watch rather than this so that I could develop on a more useful and up-to-date platform. Thanks for reading. Happy new year! Here is the source code and specs for these watch faces :

LCD Watch Face

Source : https://github.com/tuxology/LCDWatchFace

Download : lcdwatchface.apk

CRT Watch Face

Source : https://github.com/tuxology/CRTWatchFace

Download : crtwatchface.apk

If you find any bugs, report them on Github. Also, if you want me to port them on Android Wear, let me know. I’ll try to do that in emulator.