Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2018 06:56:30 -0500 Subject: toys From: Hobbit Heh, well, I actually installed that Zello apk and played with it a bit. It actually seems to be quite a clean system, nice-ish design. Probably a huge battery-sucker if you keep it on all day, though, since it's always actively polling the servers. If you decide to play, remember that you *don't* have to muck with the google-store and accounts to get it, they have a direct APK download on their site. Anyway, I offered to listen in on any Worldcon channels that Rick deigns to give me access to, just for a lark. There are some public channels I sat on for a little last night; it *totally* sounds like the old rag-chewing on 2-meter or CB, and sorta took me back 40 years to when I'd listen to the complete irrelevant crap people were talking about... It's definitely a different conversational dynamic, though, and I think a really valuable one. One-to-many, you can't talk over each other, and the whole thought process is different ... which is likely why there wasn't a huge outcry about CB being such a distraction for drivers back in its day. I may rant about this a little more on TF at some point.. heck, if I upgrade my phone by Arisia we may not need Angela's radios, as scary as that sounds. _H* ____________________________________________ Date: Fri, 07 Sep 2018 10:08:45 -0500 Subject: Re: Sideband blather re Arisia '19 tech From: Hobbit ... Speaking of "sideband blather", I've been messing around with Zello on the various android-ish boxes here. A PTT style "radio" app. It actually looks pretty solid and simple, although they didn't manage to get organized enough to use it at Worldcon. Might be just the thing to sub for the long-haul repeatered radios I was hollering for, provided enough key people [:del:]have been assimilated[:del:] *do* have decently data-capable smartphones by then. _H* ____________________________________________ Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2018 06:17:50 -0500 To: logistics Subject: realtime comms From: Hobbit In previous years this would have been under subject "radios", but there might be some more appropriate options by now. Realtime voice communication is always useful for what we do, and in the run-up to the worldcon last year an app called Zello was discussed. I didn't go to that worldcon and the people there didn't get around to *using* Zello, but in the meantime and having finally gotten assimilated into the smartphone-Borg, I spent a little time checking it out for myself. It's a "walkie-talkie" app, turning any iphone/android device into a two-way push-to-talk unit when the app is running. All it needs is a data connection, either wifi or cell. It doesn't even have to be a *phone* per se, it runs on tablets and PCs too. Data and battery usage is surprisingly minimal. An almost unlimited quantity of private channels can be created -- think of it like Slack for voice, perhaps. The Zello servers can even buffer up messages for recipients who fall offline for a while and deliver them later. It sends talk and control data over simple UDP and TCP connections, relaying through Zello's server farm(s), similarly to Skype and Gotomeeting or anything else like that. So with something like this and appropriate devices clipped to everyone's butt, the cell networks and/or local wifi infrastructure would become our long-haul repeater. The important thing would be to get folks to get on board with this in advance, pull down the app and get themselves set up with it, make a username in the Zello environment, and agree that they'd actually use the thing. So the first question is, does this sound like a good enough idea for folks to go through the process? With myself as one of the last flip-phone holdouts having finally fallen, could we assume that enough logistics-team people would have suitable devices with them when working con operations that it would be practical? To start answering some of these questions, I would encourage people to go read through some of the stuff at https://support.zello.com/hc/en-us and make sure to read the info for your own device type. To start playing with it, there's https://zello.com/personal/download/ to find the software. For Android, they even supply a *direct* .APK download link so you don't have to mess with the google-store if you don't like it. Not sure for iphone, that seems to only be at itunes. Basically, this is just to float the general idea and if there's enough interest, specifics can be worked out later. There aren't any "Arisia" channels or the like extant yet. If the whole idea gets poo-poohed, then we'll use something else. I found the Zello install and UI to be quite clean and simple, i.e. something even *I* as the resident curmudgeon could be easily convinced to use. Oh, and it's free, too -- ignore all the "ZelloWork" stuff, that would be for much more in-depth commercial outfits which they do support. There is also a whole range of products out these days based around Zello and similar infrastructures, from complete "network radios" to plug-in and Bluetooth speaker-mic add-on units so a user doesn't have to be forever fumbling with the device itself. They're not particularly cheap but for people who get more into the whole idea, may be a worthwhile investment for other contexts they might find themselves in later. I have no recommendations in this area, haven't really scanned the field. Some phones, like my Cat S41, already have a spare hardware button that can be assigned "PTT" functionality to act like a handy-talkie, which may be good enough. Other button mapping games can be played on different devices too. _H* ____________________________________________ Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2018 11:20:13 -0500 From: Lisa Subject: Re: realtime comms I used Zello a bit at W76, but only to send individual texts. So I am already on it and have used it before. Still not adept, though. ____________________________________________ Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2018 13:19:59 -0500 Subject: Re: realtime comms From: hobbit If you registered a phone number, I think you can create channels. I didn't [yet], so I can't experiment with anything other than some of the public chat channels [which, btw, totally remind me of the CB days]. There's a lot of fluff kicking around Zello but you have to go looking for it; a couple of dedicated Arisia channels could make it seem like a private service. I would suggest obscure channel names that do *not* relate to Arisia in any obvious way if you decide to experiment, and of course give them passwords but not ridiculous ones. Lemme know if you play, I can be a test endpoint. _H* ____________________________________________ Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2018 14:09:08 -0500 To: techs-* From: hobbit Subject: Re: radio repeater location I'm probably the last person you'd expect to be touting "there's an app for that", but concurrent with the last Worldcon I started checking out zello.com as an alternative to long-haul repeaters [with Logistics in mind]. It's basically like IRC or Slack for voice, can have private and passworded channels, and seems pretty simple and solid in its PTT implementation. I believe it will buffer voice segments for recipients temporarily offline, and may have a text feature too. The basic operational model retains that important one-to-many conversational dynamic. While it does send your data through third-party servers, nothing about it or the ancillary surrounding circumstances felt sketchy to me. Their support is domestic, and humans answer the phone. As long as all needed participants have a suitable client device, which if *I* now do then almost everyone else must, it seems like a very viable alternative that only costs us a little bit of setup/familiarization time. Someone(s) would have to create and manage a few channels for Arisia. Push-to-talk headset or speaker-mic gear can be had along with, wired or bluetooth, but it's a bit pricey. It's also going to use a little more battery and cell-data than normal standby, but charge-booster packs are cheap now and it works fine over wifi too if you're connected. I will freely grant that highly variable quality of cell service at any of our venues may demand dedicated radios anyway, but it's worth considering different options... _H* ____________________________________________ From: "DrWex ." Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2018 17:09:03 -0500 Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: radio repeater location We use Zello extensively for Ingress gaming and I quite like it. The on-screen PTT button is a little more twitchy than a physical button so you have to be good about not tapping it; however, the ability to store and retrieve messages you've missed is invaluable. Zello allows channel creators to control who can speak which is nice if you have situations where one or a few people need to talk to lots of others. It is also smart enough to realize when you've put your phone on vibrate and mute itself. The UI is awful, though. I am drwex on Zello if anyone want to load it up and test. ____________________________________________ From: Tom Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2018 11:54:14 -0500 Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: radio repeater location IIRC, some subset of us did try using *zello *at one time when we were in the Westin. (This may have been before you had a smartphone.) I remember Peter O. suggested it at one point, and I tried it with somewhat inferior results. Things may have changed between then and now, but here is what I remember about it that was "not as good" as our UHF radios of the time. 1. *Wasn't loud enough*: Could't be used while working (on a ladder, scaffold, or under the stage, etc.) If my phone was in my pocket, I couldn't hear it. 2. *PTT button had no tactile feel*: One needed to be looking at the screen to see if one should talk now or wait for the app to catch up. 3. *Coverage issues*: Cell service, and WiFi access were both sometime overloaded in those years at that hotel, so not everyone received the message at the same time, or at all. Fred, What are we using this year? I have a pair of FRS radios (Midland LXT340.) They don't need a license to use them. They might work within Grand A B. Are others bringing such things anymore? It's no trouble for me to pack my two in my luggage. The past few years we seem to use radios less and less. Tom ____________________________________________ From: z! Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2018 09:13:15 -0800 Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: radio repeater location (writing from the perspective of Technical Services) Zello has been discussed and discarded at least twice. If nothing else, some of us don't carry our phones everywhere so they don't get damaged. Might work for some departments, probably not for us. Many of us have FRS/GMRS radios, and many also have the GMRS license. If we're going to use free radios, GMRS is the way since it's higher power than FRS (many radios will do both). If we go UHF commercial radios (rented or borrowed), I have a license that covers 35 hand-held units and a repeater; we did this a couple of years ago. I used to bring the FRS/GMRS radios but nobody else was using them- it takes some commitment to pick a channel, set them up, and get going. Unless we use 5w UHF, it's unlikely we'd get top-to-bottom of the hotel coverage, OTOH it's probably not necessary, anyway; the BPP rooms are more concentrated than at the Westin. If multiple departments are going to use radios, especially FRS/GMRS, there needs to be some coordination of frequencies and PL numbers. Later, z! ____________________________________________ From: Rick Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2018 18:53:18 -0500 Subject: what radios will Tech use this year? Could you all change the subject of this zello / frs / gmrs navel gazing? I.E. I've changed it here, please continue any Tech radio neepery using this changed subject. Ops / Watch are going with Commercial Radios which is what the thread was originally about. ____________________________________________ Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2019 19:51:33 -0500 To: lisa From: hobbit Couple of hopefully minor things. Well, more major if it involves any rework of timing. First -- if you've played with zello and have the app and an account already, any chance I could convince you to set up at least one Arisia channel? Doesn't have to be specific for anything, just "Arisia 1" would suffice or something; problem is that they want a "registered" phone number which you're probably more willing to provide than I am. Simple password will do, shouldn't be open. Second -- have you had time to mull over my own transport situation, e.g. tech gear in my Prius heading in Thurs morning? Rumor had it that you were making plans without consultation, so we evidently need to talk about this... My leg still hurts, and I seem to be sorta sick last night and today. I really wish Arisia was a week later, as do many other people. _H* ____________________________________________ From: Lisa Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2019 10:45:20 -0500 Subject: Zello Logistics is using Zello instead of radios this year. I sent some of you invites. You can use Zello to contact logistics. You can always also call/text me too. -- Lisa ____________________________________________ Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2019 11:21:52 -0500 Subject: Re: Welcome to Zello! Confirm your email now From: Hobbit So if that's the zello accountname, that's fine, but I already have my own login I'd be using with it. So what's still needed is a channel or two, set up the right way -- which presumably I could do if logged in under logistics, and then log out and join it under me? I'm not sure exactly how this was intended to work. The usage model, however, is that everyone has their own individual login and then joins named *channels*. I'll take no action until I'm clear on how we're going to use this... Also, please keep in mind that once zello accounts are created, they tend to stick around forever. The zello folks expressed reluctance to clean up "stale" accouts because they often enough find that people who set them up for a one-off event come back three years later, suddenly expecting everything to still work. [Yes, I had a rather fascinatingly in-depth convo with their folks in Austin.] _H* ____________________________________________ From: Hobbit Subject: Re: Zello Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2019 12:30:37 -0500 (EST) Note that for Android users, zello.com provides a DIRECT .apk download for installing the app if you don't like the google-store. Between that sort of user-community awareness and domestic, clueful support folks, I've been pretty impressed with what they've got going here. Please create your own accounts at zello.com to hop on, as the info Lisa sent out is really for channel maintenance and the zello folks might take a dim view of twenty of the same account logged into the servers. You may want to fiddle with your app/battery settings, to make sure Zello is "not optimized" and permitted to run data while it's in the background. Check "wake up device to keep Zello connected", but you'll probably want to UNCHECK "start zello when phone powers on"! Calls should continue to come in unhampered if your phone has gone to sleep, even if you have to wake it back up to transmit. It appears to be quite frugal with battery and processor load when idle. If any of y'all want to play and test, I'll try to stay on the channel for the rest of the day. I want to test my own battery drain rate anyways.. You can test via your local wifi and/or over cell-data, it should all be equivalent. _H* ____________________________________________ Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2019 11:36:28 -0800 From: Elliott Subject: Re: Zello Various OSes are here: https://zello.com/personal/download/ Narrowing it down further: https://zello.com/data/android/latest/zello.apk https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.loudtalks The checksums I got were: MD5: c316ce799b8faaf03b6ab8cd05c6b18a SHA1: 79c4bb86f1953b6dc4d5c51739cc90cf6ddfe975 SHA256: 3817e48d828250e43b50bb240f7cd3b9aec336323001c960165ca3dfee685a9d SHA512: 5c531ba42a0ece6c12df02594b570981ff277819c61d226625578ccbdb59e166078fa1e7f26f8c705eac3b59c2d74e354622540fe24a6d963f13ee2555150b6f So either we'll all be compromised or none of us will. The concern is we're not exactly personal use here. Sure, the extra for ZelloWork are useless for us, but this still isn't really personal. There is a good chance Arisia could get an okay for free usage by a non-profit, but it seems better to confirm now than have a lawyer show up unexpectedly. Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2019 15:10:18 -0500 From: hobbit Subject: zello is sorta live Below is a short thread that went to logistics/divheads; some of you have already seen it. If you felt like jumping in and playing, Lisa did create a channel for us. Either way I think if you jump through the hoops, you add the channel name as a "contact" and it joins you to the channel, or use the channel search thingie. To do this, of course, you have to 1> have interest, 2> pull down the app and install it, 3> create a login, and 4> finally connect. Understood if it seems like too much hairball just to listen in, on a channel that is in fact staying surprisingly *inactive* despite a few people clearly having signed up and hopped on. But I could see some utility, like standing around on Columbus Ave asking "What's ETA on the keep-warm truck??" over a far wider range than what GMRS provides, and as I've said before, the dynamics work better than a phone call or text. Zello only allows one instances of an account to be connected at a time, apparently, unceremoniously disconnecting any that were logged in before a new one. Presumably, this is for some sort of accountability. ==== ____________________________________________ Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2019 20:38:23 +0000 (UTC) From: Leon Subject: Re: Zello I've already got an account, so I'll see if I can find you. --Leon ____________________________________________ Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2019 15:45:56 -0500 To: leon Subject: Re: Zello From: Hobbit Just hop on the channel, I'm there. Search for "arisia" should work.. _H* ____________________________________________ From: Hobbit Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2019 11:18:30 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Zello I think there's a little confusion going on about the zello channel. Our channel happens to have the same name as the account that Lisa created. If you simply try to "add a contact" with that name, it creates the equivalent of a "friend" request to the *account holder*, which is the wrong thing to do. Select the "channels" heading instead, and use the blue "group +" button [or however it looks in your app] to do a channel search. Search for "arisia", you should see the channel pop up in the results. Add *that* as a "contact", which really adds it as a channel in your personal list instead, and then just join it. No intervention needed, as the channel is open for now. If it starts getting spammed, some nominal lockdown may be needed but I don't anticipate having that problem near-term. And when you get there, it really is okay, not to mention recommended, to key up and do "huh, is this thing on?" and confirm connectivity if anyone happens to be listening. And there should be no need to worry about our commercial/nonprofit/personal usage; if it emerged that the Zello people were listening to channel content trying to determine usage purpose, that would be all over the press and people would bail off in droves. They're not fecebook. Given what I've heard on some of the popular public channels, not an issue. _H* ____________________________________________ Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2019 07:17:03 -0500 Subject: coupla things From: hobbit I'm just thinking of a few bits to know and ask about this morning... ... While Zello can carry text it's not intended as a text app, it's a thing to carry the *human voice* in a one-to-many fashion. A novel concept for anyone who wasn't exposed to the CB era. [Kids these days...] Texts are *likely* to be missed so for our purposes don't even try to use them, the idea is to be live interactive and it helps to ask for a specific recipient and get an ACK if needed -- normal radio pseudo-etiquette. Zello also has a little curly "replay" button, so if you didn't hear what someone said, try that before asking "wut?". This will be a common occurrence when the phone is in your pocket or whatever, someone's initial transmission will be muffled. This even works if you aren't saving history [which I am not]. _H* ____________________________________________ Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2019 21:13:28 -0500 To: techs-* From: Hobbit Subject: Re: Logistics issues Okay, I'm just back home, after we put the trucks to bed at the walmart down the road. We *did* manage to fish out six 6x12 lekos, put C-clamps on them, and they're loose-ish in the back of the truck. Also, the screen Audrey which we were told was the one for the truss got huffed down the stairs. So in theory everything for the truss is coming in tomorrow morning, including the Rokboxes which are getting transferred to the truck in the morning. We will be bringing that truck in, targeting 10AM arrival but this is boston rush-hour and Kneeland St sucks at any time of day, so who knows. Hop on one of the zello channels for realtime updates, maybe. All of this is pretty unbelievable, giving rise to this year's tagline as "Tilting at Elevators". Because they're big, impassive, and give not one tiny wet shit about our lives or our needs. But I'm not feeling upset at all, as this is like the 6th strike against Arisia and after a while they all just wash over you, and to use today's popular phrase for it, it is what it is. 'Nite _H* _______________________________________________ ### Post-con ### _______________________________________________ From: Hobbit Subject: amusing review suggestion Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2019 16:17:30 -0500 (EST) For those of you were on Zello during con logistics, and had the app save history ... go ahead and review some of it. There's a little icon that says "1x", which if you tap cycles up to a max "smart" playback speed of 1.5x without sounding like chipmunks. But take particular note of how YOUR OWN transmissions sound. Intelligibility seems to depend heavily on how sensitive your phone's microphone is and/or how hard you may have overloaded its front end while talking -- at some louder peaks you'll hear some crackling, which indicates you're hitting a limit. Around 12:20 on Thursday seems to be about when Lisa's mic went south and stayed that way for the duration. I suspect inadvertent pilot error, and regret that we didn't take an opportunity to look at her config. The app has some audio settings, notably "record amplifier" which seems to do its best microphone moderation in "automatic" mode with NO noise suppression. One thing to try is use the "echo" contact to test various volume levels and settings and try to learn where your own hardware just loses it. Also make sure there's no cruft jammed into the hole for your microphone, which could easily affect its fidelity. Obviously these are things to note for the next event [perhaps this weekend for some?], but Lisa says the channel should just hang around, as should the tech one too, so feel free to use them for extracurricular activities. If our channels start getting spammed we can just slap a password on them, easy fix. It's also easy to search for random open channels that got created a long time ago with maybe half a dozen subscribers that probably haven't been accessed for years since; those should be free to use as well, if you don't care that an unknown channel owner could come along and kill it. Just have a couple of backups ready, and don't send any sensitive info. Zello was damn useful to us, and amply satisfied what I was asking for in my 2016 debrief. Being able to hear all the chatter over at 561 while working on something else in the ballroom was just awesome, especially when I could just key up and ask Dan how easy it would be to get the Colorblaze lights downstairs. Within a mere couple of hours, they were on the stage. The history is kept under /storage/emulated/0/Zello/history/LONGHEXSTRING, at least on my phone. We ran up about 11 Mb of chatter over the weekend. _H* ____________________________________________ From: Lisa Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2019 17:10:54 -0500 Subject: Re: amusing review suggestion I confess I had my doubts about Zello -- I didn't use it well for Worldcon -- but it did work admirably for A19 Logistics. I do admit my fidelity totally sucked, though. -- Lisa ____________________________________________ From: hobbit Subject: Re: amusing review suggestion Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2019 08:58:25 -0500 (EST) I had a chance to check Lisa's zello settings yesterday -- and sure enough, both the recording and playback levels under "Audio" were cranked to the max, with no automatic regulation. [How??] Once I put them back in the default middle and enabled automatic regulation for the microphone, Lisa's phone sounded fine. It's useful to turn on the audio level meter under "behavior" and test yourself against the "Echo" contact -- if you're overdriving levels out to the red ends of the meter, that's way too loud. ### [ Later update: Lisa suggested that her car's Bluetooth ] ### [ may have done something weird with the settings. ] I also observed that when several people on a channel are physically near each other, you sometimes get incoherent multi-point babble because each recipient has a different delay from the server. But the replay button, used on *one* phone in the vicinity, is the best way to clarify what was just said without trying to move away and ask for repeats. _H* ____________________________________________ Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2019 09:13:13 -0500 From: hobbit Subject: Re: Radios and GMRS Licence So ... Zello may not be the right answer for some contexts, but for our Logistics purposes it totally rocked, and provided better and farther-reaching infrastructure than any trunked-repeater rental outfit around here could have. There are some subtle opportunities for user error, which in this case had our leader barely understandable for some of the time and it turned out to *not* be her phone's fault. Zello wound up having tech usefulness this time anyway, when folks in the ballroom could discuss pick items with the folks in Storage -- just because we happened to hear that people were in the right place. No need for fumbling with phone numbers and people having to relay information from one-to-one calls. _H* ____________________________________________ From: z! Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2019 11:50:06 -0800 Subject: Re: Radios and GMRS Licence Well, sort of..... IME, doubtful, and "we" seldom use a trunked system. Remember that the LASFS single-repeater radio system (doesn't Arisia partly own it?) can reach 20 miles from a good antenna location. Just like a cell phone? It wasn't as much that zello helped, but the cell coverage at both locations with a possible small part of the "group page" part. (Fumbling with phone numbers? Isn't what contact lists are for? And most phones will send group SMS messages, too.) Anyway, it did seem to work for these limited use cases, but wasn't the only thing that would have. I'd still rather have a HT with lapel mic or headset for serious communications. Later, z! ____________________________________________ Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2019 15:48:07 -0500 To: techs-* From: hobbit Subject: Re: Radios and GMRS Licence ... rather have a HT with lapel mic or headset for serious communications. Yes, as many others agree, which is why there are speaker-mic products *geared specifically for Zello* and similar PTT functionality out there, in wired or wireless/bluetooth configuration. A little pricey because it's a narrow market, but I'm being really tempted. At that point the phone can be put away in a pocket or holster and it all just works like the radios we're traditionally used to. If we're back in the Westin it might be a little more iffy, as a lot of people say they get crappy cell coverage over there. I've been finding that the "recommended" 4G setting delivers largely mythical coverage in most places including at home, and generally back off to 3G as the more reliable pipe, so that might have something to do with it. _H* ____________________________________________ Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2019 13:04:16 -0800 From: Elliott Subject: Re: amusing review suggestion Another setting I'd noticed which people might wish to be aware of, on Android: Options -> Behavior -> Wake up the device to keep Zello connected This setting defaults to on. I'm pretty sure what this is doing is this makes Zello do <something> which prevents the device from getting into the lowest power states. The benefit is this means you won't miss messages due to the phone going into a very low power state and completely disconnecting it's modem from networks. The downside is this means you consume power, and the battery won't last nearly as long. I've noticed Zello heavily decreases battery life on my phone. Battery life was down by half. Killing ("Force Stop") Zello returned battery life to normal, so I've got the culprit. Turning that setting off returns a lot of battery life. There is a concern as to why Zello has such a setting? My guess is some phones tend to strongly lock in low-power states and aren't woken by the packet Zello uses to say "talk ready". I haven't tried via the cell modem yet, but my initial testing suggests my phone does successfully get woken by that packet over 802.11 and so turning that off is the right thing. At a guess, there are chipsets from one of four manufacturers used in most cellphones: Apple, MediaTek, Qualcomm or Samsung. I've read stories about MediaTek's drivers tending to be rather lower quality than Qualcomm's. Features or APIs being missing or only partially implemented. My phone has a Qualcomm chipset, could be the MediaTek chipsets (more common in lower-end phones) are troublesome here. I haven't read much about Samsung's chipsets, aside from them being one of the companies rather reluctant with GPL compliance. When looking for confirmation about my guess, I ran into a mention of the Inrico T199. Apparently a cellphone really trying to look and act like a walkie-talkie. I'm rather surprised someone bothers with non-quad-band GSM nowadays (nowadays this often increases costs due to needing to keep track of two things instead of one). ____________________________________________ From: hobbit Subject: Re: amusing review suggestion Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2019 01:44:52 -0500 (EST) This is drifting way far away from the area of logistics, but I'm not convinced your observations universally apply. I've found that Zello is *very* frugal on battery usage with the phone in standby, and that possibly comes from giving Zello its head in terms of battery usage and letting it do its own thing. I went through 2+ days of being pretty much constantly on the logistics channel before having to charge, and only had to charge once during the con weekend. In the battery usage stats, lighting the screen was by far the top consumer, with Zello down around on par with cell-standby. Enabling the load bargraph in "developer options" shows virtually no difference in realtime load with Zello running or not, over wifi or cell-data. Granted, my Cat phone has a monster 5 Ah battery in it, but still -- I have that "wake up the device" setting checked, and have the Zello app set to *not* be subject to battery "optimization" or any background data restrictions. In other words, letting it use as much power and data as it wants, because I know that such usage will be minimal, and it will receive channel traffic quite promptly even after being asleep for a long time. And that's on a Mediatek platform! I even dropped the keepalive polling interval to 140s in the advanced config, just to theoretically have peppier response. Frankly, if you're trying to have your surrounding OS micromanage Zello's use of resources, you're probably wasting more runtime and power trying to do that rather than just leaving Zello alone to do its own management. The biggest detriment as far as battery usage that most people seem victim to these days comes from having "upgraded" to Android 8; the complaints about battery life afterward are legion all over the internet. I don't know if the same problems have pervaded recent custom firmware too, but it may be worth some deeper checking. You [Elliott] of all people should have a sufficiently instrumented platform at hand to diagnose all of this in depth, and you're about the last person I'd expect to be complaining about this on Androids rather than figuring out what's actually wrong and advising the rest of us as to the best configuration. And yeah, there are some hilarious products out these days that are basically phones repackaged to look like some oddball type of "ham radio". It's pretty far from the truth of what's going on behind the scenes, but there are whole channels' worth of users who have been totally duped into buying this crap because they think it'll work better than their $80 LG. _H* ____________________________________________ Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2019 18:20:57 -0800 From: Elliott Subject: Re: amusing review suggestion As Zello is a tool which has shown great potential for both Logistics and Tech, there is value in spreading tricks we learn about it around. You need to be aware of what is being measured and where. The low battery use in the Zello column may conceal Zello causing other columns to increase in size. My phone has a mere 3.2Ah battery and a Qualcomm MSM8996 ("Snapdragon 820") chipset, but a large screen and potentially high power consumption radio (LTE is quite complex and the components use more power to send greater amounts of data). Once home from Arisia my phone's battery was only lasting about 16 hours (enough for a day, barely). My test: Settings -> Apps -> Zello -> Force Stop (effectively `pkill -9 com.loudtalks`). After this my phone's battery lasted 2 days. Even though Zello's direct battery use was low, this is clear proof Zello was causing battery use elsewhere. Turning off the "Wake up the device to keep Zello connected" appears to make a big difference. Looks like with that turned off I'll be back to 2 days between charges. Evidence from today indicates this isn't preventing reception of messages when my phone's screen has been off for a while. Other phones may need to leave the setting on in order to receive messages when the screen has been off for a while (everyone may need to test this setting on their phone). Meanwhile the "battery optimization" setting is a bit more likely to cause trouble: https://support.zello.com/hc/en-us/articles/230745567-How-to-prevent-Android-OS-6-0-from-disconnecting-Zello-while-in-background (pretty much this is the concern with all these settings, breaking Zello due to putting the process to sleep) _____________________________________________ Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2019 15:02:09 +0000 From: Hobbit To: support@zello.com Subject: history question Hi -- a small group doing transport logistics for a convention used Zello quite a bit over last weekend, with *resounding* success. No local trunked-infrastructure radio rental outfit would have had anywhere near the reach and coverage we did. Thanks for a great and useful utility! Once we trained people to *wait* for the "nextel noise" before speaking and to keep their volume levels in check, it was smooth sailing. The multi-delay babble you get from having several recipients standing together is amusing, but the replay button on one unit brings clarity. Question about the history data -- is it stored in any discernible format, such that the data could be extracted in some audio format later? I realize that the indexing and the audio data are kept in separate files, but if there was some way to turn the raw data into an mp3 stream or the like I'd love to know how. Thanx _H* _____________________________________________ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2019 00:48:08 +0000 From: support@zello.com Subject: [Zello Support] Re: history question To: Hobbit Zello Support, Jan 28, 18:48 CST On the free app, all audio files are stored in a propietary format and cannot be exported. You can use our ZelloWork paid subscription service which offers a Message Vault option to store your messages in our cloud. You can filter, export and play any messages for up to 2 years. We have a free 30-day, 10-user trial of ZelloWork with Message Vault and Premium Mapping here: https://zello.com/work/