I am looking to customize a tablet for a very specific purpose.
This might not be the place to post this project but I don't know where else to start. If this is not the place can someone here guide me to where I should post this?
I want to do something for my Dad. He is elderly and has a type of dementia that robs him of his short term memory. He has the weakness that comes with age but fortunately his eyesight with glasses and hearing are still good. He likes music (mostly big band from the mid to late 30's) so I want to put together a music system for him that is straight forward and does not require him to remember anything about how to use it. We have not been successful with radios, cd players and such because of small buttons and controls and his memory problem. He always has to end up asking someone to get the device to work or he figures it is broken so he tries to fix it. What I really want to do here is give back my Dad some sense of independence as his frailties has taken so much of that away. My current thinking is some sort of Tablet tied to a stereo amplifier and speakers. Everything would be controlled by the tablet with on screen prompts to guide him every step of the way. The tablet cannot have the cluttered menu system they normally come with. It has to be modified to have very limited functionality.
Tablet requirements:
* Turn the tablet and stereo system on and off with the same button.
* When it all turns on go right into playing music.
* When it turns on the volume is set to a preset level so we can make sure it does not initially come on to loud.
* A way for him to adjust the volume.
* A way for him to set a multi-band equalizer to his liking while the music is playing.
* Default random music shuffle mode from all the music loaded not just per album.
* Alternately a way to pick the song he wants to play.
* Larger font/type for older eyes if he does not want to wear his glasses.
* A way for me to load his music and update the software but setup so as not to be accidentally stumbled into.
* Don't think we want something that has to be charged as he would get frustrated if it stopped working. Maybe just a wall wart type power all the time.
* Hard wired to stereo.
* Mounted on swing out arm to wall so it can be stored out of the way but is supported and does not have to be held and can't be dropped. (This and the stereo and speakers I can take care of.)
Possible but not necessary at this time:
* The music player could also show information about the current playing song.
* A picture mode he can look at his own photos while music plays.
* Auto shut off at night or sleep timer button.
We would prefer a tablet that is popular to insure support from original manufacture as well as large modding community such as yours.
I have an electronics background and have done some limited programming so I fully intend to help in any way I can.
Quick question
So now you all have had time to digest my project. Let me ask a basic question. Can a tablet without too much trouble have a custom menu that it boots up into whenever it's turned on?
Yes, for an example through a custom launcher.
Maybe even just an app that starts on boot.
The question is not how much trouble, but how much work.
It most likely isn't that difficult, but probably is a lot of work.
Tablet suggestion?
Thanks for that. I found out that dedicated menu thing is referred to as "kiosk" mode.
So my next question is what tablet would be ideal for this project? I am thinking something that has been produced in large numbers and is popular with the modding community. Any suggestions?
Related
Admins/Mods: I know I'm brand new here, but every other place I go directs me here, and I don't blame them. I've been browsing the forums for a while now, and xda-devs really know their stuff. Please give this thread a while to help me find an answer.
Developers: I'm having an issue with my Droid 2 and headphones. First things first, I would like to know if there is some way to disable headphone jack media controls on the ROM side of things, such as deleting a script or a code or similar. Reasons being, I'm having a bit of an extremely annoying issue.
When I plug headphones in, no matter what type, music players go wacky if it's disturbed in some hard to duplicate manner. I should take the time to say that I have three media players on my phone, the Music player, XiiaLive, and Pandora. That said, when I listen to music in my car, for example, let's say I pull my phone out of the tray and turn it on to switch tracks. About 85% of the time, no trouble. The remaining 15% is me wondering why the phone just up and randomly switches to a completely different song. One time im specific, i unlocked the phone and went to go to the next track on a Breaking Benjamin album, and it just switches itself to a different artist entirely.
Another thing is, if the music player is currently playing and I unplug headphones, the music player will stop playing, but XiiaLive will bring itself up (which never runs unless i open it, and i task kill it closed when i'm done for this reason) and start streaming the last station I played.
It's driving me nuts. Like I said, I've asked around. Droidforums.net, Android Central... they all say to come ask here. Please tell me there's a way to get rid of this function.
Sorry for the long (albeit detailed) post.
Any way to make the media volume remember the last volume used or set to high when plugging in a headphone??
It always starts around 60% because "LOUD MUSIC IS BAD FOR YOU!" which is annoying when being used for aux in a car!!
I find this "feature" incredibly annoying.
I bought a phone, and got a Nanny. I could have done better in this regard with an iPhone. I'm not a child and I refuse to let a device treat me as such.
Try Automate It Pro! or Tasker.
Thanks chamber.
I will try that, but at the same time, I wonder if there's a way to remove this "FEATURE" in the first place, rather than add another process on top to undo the effect?
I'm surprised it hasn't pissed off enough developers to kill it :laugh:
Hey, greetings from Slovakia
I'm curious, are there ways to improve sound music experience in a Windows Phone (Lumia 710), software-wise?
The phoney comes with NO sound enhancement options so it's clear that any such attempts'll be purely software-based.
I'm interested in these two, in particular:
1) Equlizer software, working with Music and Videoss app, if not globally
2) Total number of REAL volume levels (the phone should have 30, but has about 8.
Now I'm aware any of these'd be possible with a custom ROM only so that's why I'm asking first, as I suppose learning to flash that thing is going to take me couple of hours (newbie).
Thanks for everyone's reply
If you'd gone with an HTC phone, you might have been able to use the Sound Enhancer app (which worked fine pre-Mango, although it seems to have been taken off the Marketplace since). That provided the equalizer, at least...
I don't really know what to say to your complaint about the "REAL" volume levels; I can hear a distinct change in volume at each step. I do feel that the minimum should be lower (I occasionally mute the phone by accident, tapping down once when it's already at 1) and I think that actually might be configurable in the registry (I haven't looked *very* hard yet) so that might be possible with a custom ROM. I know you can adjust the number of steps in the volume control in the registry, too.
My only real gripe with the way WP7 handles sound is how freaking loud minimum volume is. Maybe this is just a hardware level issue, but I do somewhat agree with you; in that the phone doesnt seem to have a lot of range, in regards to volume control. However, I feel the 30 step software volume dial is audibly different between every step.
I was referring to this issue (posted by me): http://discussions.nokia.com/t5/Har...trol-only-8-levels-instead-of-30/td-p/1504138
Hope it's allowed to post links to other forums. It's Nokia's official, not a community. Best part is no one from Nokia gives a flying phuk, the question is unanswered for 3 months.
I've been searching for a way to control the volume of different apps independent of each other. As in those apps that don't have any in-app specific volume controls. The only thing I've found is that the native android OS doesn't support such a feature, but that information is old. And while I'm inclined to believe that is still the case, making sure never hurt anyone.
While this has bugged me a bit in the past, it's only now that I've started using Google Now that's it's become annoying. I'm occasionally playing a game that has no in-app sound control, and I don't like the music/effects of that game, so I turn the media volume down to mute. But when I then switch to Google Now, the voice is on the same "media" volume control, which in turn makes me miss the spoken answer to my inquiry. I may not play the game in question a month from now, but the issue will surely persist with another app in the future.
Any suggestions?
Anyone know if it's possible under Android atm?
Salvation!
Just in case anyone else has been looking for something similar, I just got a tip for [APP][2.2+] App Volume. I've only been using it for about a day, but it does exactly what I need. And while it costs around a dollar, it's a small price to pay for the convenience of never having to change the volume for the different apps you use. It just works! Check it out!
Not sure if anyone is familiar with something like this, or if it even exists, but here goes.
When I go running, it's very annoying to keep messing around with my phone in its arm band. It effects my pace and concentration. Hardware keys are still annoying to switch tracks with because it requires more effort than I want during a run. I have two pairs of headphones, one that came with my Samsung Galaxy S4, and one off-brand pair I picked up from Office Depot on clearance. Both have a button on the cord. I found an app that is supposed to allow me to assign functions to this button, which seems sporadic at best in its functionality. Sometimes the button works the way it should, sometimes it doesn't.
What I WANT is something I can hold in my hand, or at least wear around my wrist that's bluetooth capable and allows me to control my music. It doesn't even need to be super elegant, it can have 1-3 buttons. As long as it works to play/pause, select a previous track / next track, and adjust the volume; I'm happy. It HAS TO WORK. I don't want something that works when it feels like working, if you can understand that.
So, with that, have any of you found anything like this or do you know of something that can fit my needs? I don't think it's ridiculous to hope for something that'll allow playback control while always working when I use it, so hopefully someone on here can point me in the right direction.