Reading some of the comments from the original post, it seems this is a trademark squatting situation. They registered the trademark (among many others I’m sure), then when they found a real tool they quickly built something similar and released it to support their claim. Suggestions on that post are that it happens all the time and ignoring them until it actually goes to arbitration is the best option (with the assumption that it would never get that far).
I have one of these that I use for Pi-hole. I bought it as soon as they were available. Didn’t realise it was 2012, seemed earlier than that.
Yeah I can imagine trying to do it manually could get pretty tricky. I’ll look forward to the smart watch support (though I don’t own one, I might get one if others report it working well with GrapheneOS).
Edit: also one thing to try out if possible is to remove battery optimization from Google Play Services. Your device might be killing that, which stops counting the steps.
It seems it’s already set to not be optimized. It doesn’t seem to have access to the physical activity permission, but granting that permission didn’t seem to help. It still doesn’t count steps with the screen off.
No matter, thanks for all the ideas, I’ll just keep watching and see if others find a solution. I’ve subscribed to the Walkscape community so hopefully you’ll be posting updates there 🙂
It doesn’t seem to be helping. If I ever work out a more reliable way to get steps counted I’ll let you know. I know some pedometer apps don’t need Google Play Services and use a persistant notification to keep it active, but it seems like quite a significant change from what you currently have which wouldn’t be worth spending time on to appease such a small group of users.
If Google Play Services aren’t on there, the Recording API will not count steps in the background.
That makes a lot of sense.
Probably easiest solution is to let WalkScape to run in the background, when it’s freezed the battery consumption should be basically nothing.
It’s allowed to run in the background, but I have now disabled battery optimisation and will see if that helps.
From my understanding, any app installed directly from Google Play should be in the sandbox and have access to Google Play Services. I haven’t quite worked out where the steps are missing, but it seems when the game is open it’s fine, and when the game hasn’t been killed by the OS it’s also fine. If I go back to the game and it has to launch again from scratch, it doesn’t seem to count steps that happened while the game wasn’t running (foreground or background).
I also see this post where others are seeing the same thing, and are not using GrapheneOS. Maybe my use of GrapheneOS is a red herring and there’s actually something else happening.
It was always odd to me that apps need to be constantly active to get the steps. I don’t get why the phone doesn’t just count in the background then allow you to request “how many steps today” or “how many steps since X date/time” via the API.
I’m using GrapheneOS and struggling to get the game to count steps when it’s not actively open. Anyone else using GrapheneOS and have any tips?
I thought I’d mention as it hasn’t been mentioned yet: the only way to install the game on Android is through Google Play. You also need to join a Google Group to get access on Google Play.
Ah, OK, it’s a personal preference thing. Personally, that’s one of the things I like over the Ubuntu one.
I am using a laptop, very limited screen real estate. I wonder if that makes a difference.
Interesting. I love Vanilla Gnome over Ubuntu’s version. What do you prefer from Ubuntu that I might have overlooked?
If you want start menu and taskbar, Linux Mint. It was based on Ubuntu so under the hood is very similar but the desktop is more Windows like.
If you want a similar experience to Ubuntu then Fedora, which uses the Gnome desktop environment like Ubuntu but without all the Ubuntu changes. Plus Fedora does some things in different ways under the hood so there is a learning experience that is a nice stepping stone rather than being thrown in the deep end.
They have talked a bit about what they are trying to do. It’s backed by Silicon Valley billionaire Eron Wolf, and he has talked about his frustration with everyone putting their blood, sweat, and tears into the software and then someone like Facebook comes along and makes billions from the work of others.
I get it’s frustrating, but personally I think it fails to see that Facebook is part of the ecosystem, but also so are many small companies, and many of these are contributing back to the software. If you remove the companies then you have removed a significant source of help. Eron wants to replace this with an expectation that people pay for their software, he wants to normalise paying for OSS so OSS doesn’t have to rely on the companies. You can see this in how FUTO keyboard using language implying you need to pay to get a license, but also it holds no features back from you and doesn’t nag if you don’t pay.
Personally I welcome new ways of thinking but even if the pay for your OSS thing works I think companies are uniquely placed to contribute in ways that a small team relying on purchases is never going to be able to replicate.
I don’t hold any ill will though, I think their heart is in the right place, albeit having missed what makes FOSS special.
Haha yeah I do find the licence a bit weird. Kind of a non-commercial licence but there are definitely some parts that I don’t quite get.
I have seen Eron Wolf talking a bit about what he is trying to do. I get his frustrations, but am not convinced their licence helps with those at all. You can’t really take open source, take away some freedoms that are sometimes taken advantage of, and pretend that removing those freedoms didn’t remove the benefits that are the reason those freedoms existed in the first place.
Typically licenses not OSI approved are referred to as “Source available” rather than “Open source”. This is one reason FUTO (who make Grayjay) refer to their license as “Source first” and not “Open Source” (though they did call it that for a while before clarifying and switching to the new term).
I’m not sure anything described as “hardcore” is my kind of game haha, but thanks for the suggestion.
Thanks for the suggestion! Looks like they have demos so I’ll check them out 🙂
Heaps of cool games in there! Anyone played any and want to recommend them?
Maybe one day I’ll have time again!
I had an Index, and after many years one of my lighthouses died (was actually from the Vive I had before that). But I wasn’t playing it enough to justify buying a new one.
Now the kids are getting older I might get back into it at some point.
I don’t have mine anymore :(
We can demand his firing but unfortunately he’s one of three founders, he’s unlikely to be fired. But I hope it’s a wakeup call to them that they should have a policy of keeping their mouth shut on politics, including all board members.