Triggering the Car Dock App

[Bakaneko]

I have a question about how the Car Dock is triggered in Android:

Is there a way to do this automatically outside of buying a "car dock" for your given phone?

I've got a GoMadic cup holder style generic phone holder that I'm pretty happy with and a basic microUSB car charger. It would be nice to trigger a Car Dock app only when its plugged in there, but I'm assuming the car docks have some sort of pin set in their USB or something that tells android "this is a car mount"...

Is there a way to do this without one of the car docks? While the Seidio car dock for the EVO looks nice, it seems to be a windshield (not a good idea in CA unless you like tickets) or a dash mount. I like the cup holder mount, so I'd rather stick with that.

Is there some sort of hardware/software thing I can get to auto trigger this? Is there a microUSB car charger that triggers the Android car mode? Am I looking at this problem in the wrong way?

 

[scubadave]

Not any kind of expert here. But since I just went through the oposite of your issue. (car dock starting in belt case)

Anyway, the X knows it is in a dock based on a magnet in the dock. So maybe you could glue a small magnet in the right place in your holder to make the X think it is a dock. I have been told if the worng app is starting (home vs car) flip the magnet. It is a +/- issue.

 

[takeshi]

Is there a way to do this automatically outside of buying a "car dock" for your given phone?

There's a Car Home icon on my Droid. Tasker could be used to launch the Car Home based on whatever criteria you want to use. As stated above, it's the magnet that triggers it. The device can't differentiate between different microUSB connectors.

 

[sniffs]

The Car Dock and MM dock are triggered by a magnet. Either the positive side or negative side put to the device opens the apps up.

 

[azjerry]

I use Tasker to popup a menu whenever I plug into power. The menu choices set different profiles (brightness, volume, wifi, bluetooth, etc). The car choice starts the Car Home app which is what the magnet triggers.

 

[Obsession]

Now without a magnet, is there anyway to launch the MM app without placing it in a dock?

 

[sniffs]

there used to be an app on the market called like Dockrunner or something like that..it manually ran the app.

 

[thomlanphear]

Vlingo has the option to have it start the in car feature whenever it connects to bluetooth. If you use a bluetooth only in your car it works just used it today

 

[Bakaneko]

The best solution I found was BlueDock, a small app that you can set to trigger Car Mode or launch an application when a specific BlueTooth device connects...

Synced that to my car's BlueTooth (or the BlueAnt in the other car) and it launches Car Mode.

Now if HTC (I have an EVO, and so I'm fairly sure the magnet thing isn't the way it works, but I could be wrong) would only make their car dock better or at least a bit more customizable. I wouldn't mind Google Car Home but the only way to install that on the EVO is via some cobbled together APK and even then it doesn't trap the Home key right...

 

[aweber1nj]

Not any kind of expert here. But since I just went through the oposite of your issue. (car dock starting in belt case)

Anyway, the X knows it is in a dock based on a magnet in the dock. So maybe you could glue a small magnet in the right place in your holder to make the X think it is a dock. I have been told if the worng app is starting (home vs car) flip the magnet. It is a +/- issue.

Woah, Woah, Woah!
Can someone point me to a link or something that documents how (in my case) a D2G responds to being close to a magnet? I am reusing a generic BB case that uses a couple of magnets as the closure (and effectively disabled a BB when put into the case, which I would love the D2 to do). I have occasionally had the car-dock app show-up without me launching it -- maybe this is the reason?

I have to go look at this car-dock app closer anyway. Do I need it if my car has a full handsfree mode that allows dialing/receiving calls and auto BT-transfer of my contacts?

Also, and sorry to dump all this into one thread, if there is some form of magnet detection in a D2[G], could I use something like Tasker to override any default function that occurs and force the phone to lock the display like a BB would?

Thanks!
-AJ

 

[sniffs]

You dont need documentation.. take a magnet, put positive side to the back by the camera and it opens an app.. flip the magnet over and it opens the other app.

magnet's in phones have been used for yeeeeeeeeeeears.

 

[aweber1nj]

That's fine-and-good. What else should I randomly test on my new phone, since I don't need any documentation? Should I try swinging it over my head to see if the accelerometer measures G-forces?

Can you tell me where the settings are to determine which apps are opened for positive and negative magnet detection?

Thanks,
AJ

 

[sniffs]

If you want to, go for it but there's no reason to be a sarcastic ass.. it's fairly common knowledge that magnet's have been in use in phone's since the early 2000's. I didn't mean to make it sound like I was waving my hands like a Jedi going "you dont need to see his identification" just that you really shouldn't need to considering just find a magnet and touch it to the back..

Look at every single Blackberry made since then.. if you put the phone in the case, it locks it.

not all Android phones make use of this but it seems Motorola's do. You never wondered why an app mysteriously opened when you put it in the car dock, or the multimedia dock?

Funny story.. my brother used to put his phone in his pocket with his money clip and it would always be in car dock mode when he pulled it out.. he wondered why for the longest time and then I told him it's because of the magnet in the money clip..

 

[aweber1nj]

No, I'm coming from a BB Storm. If I didn't mention it in this post, I certainly did in another (and no fault to you for not seeing that, of course).

Thus, my intent - for the time-being - would be to get my D2G to lock the screen and shutoff the display if it detects a (any polarity) magnet such as is used in cases. Same function as the BBs.

Don't get me wrong, I left BB for a reason, but that function was great and saved accidental key-presses and shutdown the power-sapping display immediately.

Do you know a way to change what happens when the phone detects each polarity (or any polarity) magnet? Or at least ignore it entirely since I don't want to use the CarDock App anyway?

(FWIW: Looks like Tasker Dev has magnet detection event on the "to-do list", but it's not there yet.)

Thanks,
AJ

 

[sniffs]

Not sure, but you can check out the Motorola Developer site.. I found this tidbit with just my first search,

I wanted to make a simple application, just for test purposes. An action that would manually kick off the multimedia app (seemed useful since there doesn't appear to be a launcher available for the multimedia station.).

So fiddling with a magnet (I don't have a dock yet) and after looking at the logs, I see that it creates an action "android.intent.action.MAIN" and category "android.intent.category.DESK_DOCK" with flag 0x10200000. I can generate the same intent but it doesn't seem to launch the DESK_DOCK. There is a "DockObserver" that is detecting that the state changes to a 1, and back to a 0 if the magnet is removed. I am guessing this observer is observing the magnetometer sensor for the state change and is needed. How can I fool the dockobserver to allow the multimedia station app to run? Or am I not on the right track at all?

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