Almost been 30 days

[JamesO]

It would be really good if it could turn the scanner off. I always hated that with my BCT 15x and remote head. I'd have the scanner elsewhere in the car. Turn off the remote head and had to go around and turn off the scanner yet.

Agree, this is part of the idea for a Remote Head, however, the BC-RH96 for the 15/x96 scanners was kind of an afterthought, more of a serial remote controller.

I would HOPE that with the x36HP they thought this through clearly, BUT, like anything, the Network/WiFi dongle would have to stay powered on in a Standby state, or at least go to (or have a user configurable option) for Network standby state when power is restored to the radio. This would mean the WiFi dongle and Wifi/Networking portion of the scanner would be powered up, so the radio could then be REMOTELY powered up.

The radios would also need an auto power off timer, which they have, however, not sure if they have this to power of to a network Standby. Because many users may show up on a scene, shut the vehicle off and want to listen, but if for some reason you forget to shut the radio down, it would be nice for it to auto power into a Standby state.

This gets a bit complicated, however, it is totally something that can be done, someone needs to think it out carefully and really understand how many may use their scanners.

I hope the surprise us all, but MANY, MANY smart phone remote type Apps, at least for Home Theater are a but clunky and lack luster. I hope Uniden does their homework here.

 

[LIScanner101]

Nobody really knows for sure, but from what I'm reading on RR about the app is that it will give you the equivalent of a TV remote control without an on/off button. Actually, a TV remote without an on/off button wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Imagine for a moment walking over to your TV, turning it on, and then returning to your couch or easy chair to do pretty much everything else such as change channels, volume, record a show etc. When you are ready to turn in you just walk back over to the TV and shut it off. No big deal. It's out in the open and easily accessible (assuming you didn't hang it from a high point on a wall of course). Now back to a scanner. If it's readily accessible then why would you need a form of remote control? You don't, unless you just like adding layers of complexity to simple things. The TRUE benefit of an RC would be in perfectly realistic scenarios where a scannist has elected to install their scanner in a remote location to deter theft, or maybe just to get it in a more easily mountable location. Problem is, THIS scenario is where you would REALLY NEED a true on/off switch - but it doesn't seem like this app will support it. Which leads me back to wondering what the app is really for......

 

[JamesO]

Nobody really knows for sure, but from what I'm reading on RR about the app is that it will give you the equivalent of a TV remote control without an on/off button. Actually, a TV remote without an on/off button wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Imagine for a moment walking over to your TV, turning it on, and then returning to your couch or easy chair to do pretty much everything else such as change channels, volume, record a show etc. When you are ready to turn in you just walk back over to the TV and shut it off. No big deal. It's out in the open and easily accessible (assuming you didn't hang it from a high point on a wall of course). Now back to a scanner. If it's readily accessible then why would you need a form of remote control? You don't, unless you just like adding layers of complexity to simple things. The TRUE benefit of an RC would be in perfectly realistic scenarios where a scannist has elected to install their scanner in a remote location to deter theft, or maybe just to get it in a more easily mountable location. Problem is, THIS scenario is where you would REALLY NEED a true on/off switch - but it doesn't seem like this app will support it. Which leads me back to wondering what the app is really for......

Exactly the issue, without a remote On & Off, it is not really a true "Remote" head or controller.

I think the other feature that Uniden is trying to offer is the ability to stream audio from the scanner, over the network to the remote device (phone, tablet or iDevice). This would be both in a local configuration, AdHoc LAN directly to the device, over the local LAN in your own Network/Home and I believe????? the ability to stream to your device at home over the WAN from say your workplace or maybe even at the scene of an event. But with anything there will be times that having the scanner locally will be required if WAN broadcast is ever a reality.

The very last part would be of interest to many as then maybe you would not even need to mount a radio in your car, except for the situation where you have questionable cell coverage and lack unlimited data streaming. If this remote WAN streaming is possible, how many remove devices can be supported? This would likely require the App to contact a central server to then access the scanner and audio stream. If this is the case, who/where will this remote server be hosted and is there a reoccurring fee associated?

Otherwise there will be a lot of trickery setting up Dynamic DNS and opening ports in a home router. Also what kind of data does all of this uploading streaming require? Some folks with DSL or even HughesNet may not be happy with the ultimate outcome.

Again, I have no idea if this is what the "final" attempt and feature set will be, but assume something along these lines is being attempted. If so, 30 days will come and go before all of these features will actually be vetted and working.

I think at best we can just hope and pray that you can sit on the back porch and listen and play with your App or cut the grass while wearing headphones on and listen to the scanner while it is in the house!!

Time will tell.

 

[VE3RADIO]

Personally my opinion is that I don't believe anything I read on here anymore... even if it comes from the UPMAN himself.

I would be shocked if Paul released anything tomorrow..

And a piece of advice... when tomorrow comes and goes don't bother complaining on here or the admins and groupies will slap you and shut you down faster than Obama can spend your tax dollars.

 

[LIScanner101]

I don't need to complain any longer. The facts are speaking for themselves. You won't catch me complaining tomorrow.

 

[JamesO]

Personally my opinion is that I don't believe anything I read on here anymore... even if it comes from the UPMAN himself.

I would be shocked if Paul released anything tomorrow..

And a piece of advice... when tomorrow comes and goes don't bother complaining on here or the admins and groupies will slap you and shut you down faster than Obama can spend your tax dollars.

I will not be complaining as I think the idea of an App is/was over simplified and my guess is the App work did not even start until the scanners were shipped when in reality the App work should have been ongoing long before the scanners even came out of final production.

Just ask the contractor that worked on the Affordable Health Care website how simple they expected the project to be when they were bidding on it and when they were award the contract.

Hindsight is 20/20!

Realize this type of effort is not usually something you can easily throw more bodies at to speed up delivery.

So the best we can do is just sit back and enjoy what we currently have.

I will check back in mid June and see where we things are!

 

[AZScanner]

Realize also that this date is 1. an estimate and 2. entirely dependent upon the manufacturer of the wifi dongles to release their updated firmware on time and without bugs.

I'm not expecting this to happen, but I would LOVE to see Paul make an announcement tomorrow that the app is finally ready for use. If that happens, I'll have to ask a few people what they'd like on the side to go with their plate of crow....

-AZ

 

[mrkelso]

Personally my opinion is that I don't believe anything I read on here anymore... even if it comes from the UPMAN himself.

I would be shocked if Paul released anything tomorrow..

And a piece of advice... when tomorrow comes and goes don't bother complaining on here or the admins and groupies will slap you and shut you down faster than Obama can spend your tax dollars.

I like that whole Obama tax thing

 

[JamesO]

If that happens, I'll have to ask a few people what they'd like on the side to go with their plate of crow.... -AZ

Massed taters!!

Oh, yea, this will be full IOS and Andriod App by tomorrow?

IOS does nothing for me.

I think I will be going hungry!

 

[AZScanner]

Massed taters!!

Oh, yea, this will be full IOS and Andriod App by tomorrow?

IOS does nothing for me.

I think I will be going hungry!

I'm sure everyone will be going hungry but I'd be thrilled to see a release announcement tomorrow regardless.

Besides, I think Paul made it pretty clear (IIRC) that the IOS app would be first, followed by an Android app later. I'll offer Uniden my services for the Android part (I work cheap, I just want a 536 out of the deal), but seeing as how I can't even get on the beta team, I probably don't have a shot. But it never hurts to ask, so I'm offering.

-AZ

 

[UPMan]

and 3, that is when we can restart development, now when the app will be ready (assuming we get the update from the mfr on time).

 

[AZScanner]

I guess we can take that to mean we're going to be waiting a bit longer. Too bad, the grocery store has a sale going on crow today...

Let me ask Paul one question - do you have resources already engaged on creating the Android app? Is it too late to get in on the process as a vendor? What about for future apps? Feel free to PM or email me (you can find my email address on the listing for ActiveEMS which also shows off some of my Android skills) with any info. I've been itching to get back into the scanner software game, but would do so only as a vendor to a manufacturer such as Uniden.

Thanks again, Paul for keeping us posted on this stuff.

-AZ

 

[JamesO]

Tastes like chicken!!

As I mentioned earlier, maybe mid June we will see where things are?

Lets hope they are using the waiting time on things like the Analyze feature and fixing the Phase 2 clicking!

 

[VE3RADIO]

and 3, that is when we can restart development, now when the app will be ready (assuming we get the update from the mfr on time).

No offense but IF what your saying is that your product depends on the ability of a vendor in some far off land to deliver a firmware update then perhaps that was not the best planning? I expect more from Uniden to be honest.. then again maybe that is NOT what you were saying? Care to elaborate on number 3?

However if that was what you were saying.. what is your plan B should this vendor fail to deliver what is promised? Are we getting partial refunds on the scanner?

 

[AZScanner]

No offense but IF what your saying is that your product depends on the ability of a vendor in some far off land to deliver a firmware update then perhaps that was not the best planning? I expect more from Uniden to be honest.. then again maybe that is NOT what you were saying? Care to elaborate on number 3?

However if that was what you were saying.. what is your plan B should this vendor fail to deliver what is promised? Are we getting partial refunds on the scanner?

Honestly, stuff like this is why I think Paul hesitates to say anything at all. :roll:

If you think Uniden is the only electronics company that outsources these components, I have some wonderful swampland in Florida for sale on the cheap. You don't really think Uniden (or most other manufactures of ANY electronic device sold today) makes their own SD cards, batteries, USB Cables and other goodies that ship with their scanners, do you? Of course not - if they did, the scanners would cost twice as much as they do now and take several years to develop. They'd have to. That's why these companies outsource. Why make your own AA batteries when you can just buy some from (opens the case on my 436 to look) curon.com? Or Panasonic? Or Duracell? Same goes for cables, SD cards, and yes, even WiFi dongles.

It makes much more sense for a company like Uniden to outsource these things rather than design and build them on their own. Paul wisely chose to let the wizards at Uniden do what they do best (build scanners) instead of tying them down reinventing things like WiFi dongles and SD cards. That's smart. Occasionally it bites you in the butt, as it did in this case, but even then, it takes an expert much less time to fix a problem with their product because that's what they do - they make dongles, or batteries, or whatever, all day, every day, for hundreds of customers (read: companies) all over the world. They might take 30 days to fix the bugs, but someone who just designed a dongle from the ground up might take several months to figure out why it doesn't work right, let alone come out with the fix.

Chances are, plan B is a bunch of free dongles from this company for a while to make up for the mess they caused if they can't fix it in time. I worked for a company years ago that got their broadband internet from Sprint. Eight OC48's, billing out at about $50,000 a month. Problem was, Sprint could never fully meet their SLA, and per the contract, if they didn't meet their SLA, they didn't get paid. So what happened? I worked there for nearly 2 years and in all that time the company didn't pay Sprint a dime for all that bandwidth. What a deal.

-AZ

 

[JamesO]

Yea, I am not for crucifying the vendor, just need something to tide me over and/or work around delays. Even if it may be something I need to pay a bit extra for, it might be worth it.

I think many would be happy with a 100BT wired USB dongle to start with. Many may not need the wireless and even with the 100BT wired USB dongle you could hang an old Linksys router running WRT or Tomato and connect the scanner to a wireless network or make your own network. From a development point of view, this is how I would have approached the project anyway, because even a one off 100BT wired USB dongle and Linksys running 3rd party firmware would have allowed the entire project to move along using "known good" networking devices. Funny how even the Linksys/Cisco routers are even unreliable with "official" Linksys/Cisco firmware, but you can install free/open source firmware and the hardware is bulletproof or at least orders of magnitude better than when running the "official" vendor firmware!

I think many might even pay for a wired 100BT USB dongle, the issue is the firmware in the scanner and the network control would need to support said 100BT wired USB dongle. I would probably like the option of both a wired and wireless device, but I could work with a cheap router and even feed it 12V from the car in the interim.

Also how about some other firmware fixes and updates while we wait? Anaylze, display voice channel frequency, Discovery sorted, Attenuators that work.

I think flipping the community some biscuits may keep the dogs happy for a while?

Just saying.

 

[VE3RADIO]

I understand the logic behind outsourcing parts... what i dont understand is why did Uniden not at least have a beta built and working before the product was released? (Did they and run in to problems?) Seems like a risky and in my opinion crazy move to release a product and just hope that the dongle you shipped with it works as anticipated. Again I dont pretend to know the actual story i can only comment on what i have read and experienced... and my 536 is still sitting with an awkward and useless wifi dongle hanging from it.

​

 

[JamesO]

I understand the logic behind outsourcing parts... what i dont understand is why did Uniden not at least have a beta built and working before the product was released? (Did they and run in to problems?) Seems like a risky and in my opinion crazy move to release a product and just hope that the dongle you shipped with it works as anticipated. Again I dont pretend to know the actual story i can only comment on what i have read and experienced... and my 536 is still sitting with an awkward and useless wifi dongle hanging from it.

​

Unplug the dongle, put it back in the box or a drawer and smile!

Mine was used for about 10 minutes, updated the firmware, connected to my network, played with a few networking tools, checked to see if the radio had a web interface, lights were on, nobody home, unplugged the dongle and put it back in the box where it will stay until there is something useful to do with it.

If you knew how many things I have purchased that were supposed to do X, Y and Z, both for professional/commercial usage and consumer usage that did not work and/or never worked you would cringe. It is a fact of technology.

The problem is how many man hours does a company invest before they throw in the towel, move on or go bust?

Not saying it is the right way, but this happens all the time. Just look at how many cell phones that had bad firmware the carriers just upgrade unhappy customers to newer model to solve the problem.

When you do not have control of end to end hardware/firmware/software, you better have alternate plans!

 

[bberns22]

I can't wait to see this thread at 90 days.

 

[JamesO]

I can't wait to see this thread at 90 days.

All I want for Christmas are my 2 phone Apps!