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[Q] Android device cluster, networking or screen sharing

In short: Is it possible to cluster, network or push device output from one device to another, share storage devices and network/gps interfaces?
The long version: I have been wanting to build an in-car device that would store media and act as a gps and what not, but haven't found a way that I want to implement it yet. I was thinking if I found a x86 port of android, got most of the voice stuff working, I could have a headless device that I could store music on and use as navigation. I know the phones are capable of that, but if I want to keep say 500 gb of music on me, how does one do that?
My thoughts were if it were possible to either cluster or network an installed android powered unit to an android powered phone, I could always have network access from the unit in the car and share the gps from the phone, or have the phone access the storage from the device (not through dlna, but the music app seeing it as physical storage) and allow me to push the output from the in car device to the phone and let me interact with the system how ever I need to I could accomplish a form of in-car entertainment.
I figured that there could be apps written that would let the in-car device act as a headless unit, with its only interface being audio, it could store navigation directions/maps and what not, so if I didn't have the phone that day, I could still navigate to where I needed to. The phone and the device could constantly be in communication with each other if the car was parked by a wifi hotspot or something, so if I chose to navigate somewhere when I was at home, the car would already have the directions. I could also have it pull any media changes through wifi, and always have an updated media library.
I know the phones are fully capable of doing this, but for most of it, you have to have a window holster for the car to use the gps, and wires running for audio and charging and what not, but if there were a way that the in-car device could be hardwired to the audio system and left alone, the phone could stay in my pocked, be linked via bluetooth and I could have a small button-pad or something that would allow me to initiate google voice search, control the media player and interact with navigation. The whole thing with linking the phone and device together would be so the mobile network could be shared between android devices and the incar device could pull the information it needed. The thought of the display sharing was in case I needed to interact with the incar device.
I know what I am going on about is specific to me, but my thoughts behind it were if it were possible to do at least the network sharing (with out tethering or mobile hot spot blah blah blah) that android phone and tablet owners could do the same thing. They could share their mobile network through their tablet and have a tablet that would be always connected, would share mailboxes with the phone and basically act the way the Blackberry playbook is proposed or how the Palm Foleo was supposed to work. If the devices had a network ability of some level, the tablet could pull text messages, email messages, contacts or any other sync-able item.. That way, this wouldn't just be done for my benefit, but it would take tablet and phone owners to another league. Two devices that share the same information from one source and don't have to sync with the same servers twice. It would take a lot of redundancy out.
I hope you guys can see usefulness in my idea, and can shed some light for me.

Sorry from bringing this back from the dead, but since I never got any responses I'll add a bit more..
Does android have anything that would work like blackberry bridge between two android devices?

Droid Vnc server and androidvnc works fine for screen sharing. What I really like is the hpc aspects to CPU cycle sharing over wifi/nfc. Really interesting possibilities.

What I am looking for is to have the ability to use two separate android devices, but have them communicate via wifi/bluetooth or what ever and act as the same device in the sense that when the device with the data plan gets a text message or phone call, the notification goes through the other device that would be physically docked to audio equipment or what ever...
I have a Droid X, Droid Incredible, Droid Pro and a first gen Droid laying around.. Currently the Droid Pro is my in use phone.. The rest are just laying here. I want to be able to dock one of the others in my car, turn the GPS on, link it to my droid pro and have the other phone use the droid pro's active data connection for guidance/searches etc, and it would be docked to car audio, so it would need to access the pro's sd card, and have access to the pro's phone audio, or the ability to route calls from the pro to the other device via bluetooth or whatever, not by call forwarding.. This way it would be a sort of infotainment/telematics system..
Think of the possibilities this would open up for android tablets etc. If You could reply to text messages from your tablet because the tablet is linked/bridged to the phone in your pocket... That would make these tablet/laptop combos more appealing because it would the perfect convergence between tablet and phone.

Oh, and I guess, the other thing is that I have multiple cars, so one device would go in each car, and then when I got in the car, the one in that car would link with my phone, and everything would be the same, car to car, or device to device...

I guess another way to bump this:
Would it be possible for an app to do ADB to ADB via bluetooth or something, because then an app could be written like pdanet that would allow the network to be shared at least?

I dont remember the name of the app I think the name of it is Dashboard? and it will store/push all texts/emails etc. to every device u have dashboard installed on...Best buy has an app kinda like that too...Like the Idea of the screen sharing is that kinda like remote desktop/control?

I just search how to neywork cluster android came across your post ..... if you use the Google apps like Google play music/maps as well Google hangouts since with Google voice you can easily do what you want with out the need for both devices being together you can upload 50000 songs 9n play music for free and any device with ur hangouts and voice will receive ur calls and email notifications .....just need to make sure have Internet

Why do tablets do the processing work?

Why do they bother to still design tablets with the CPU/GPU on board? When I think about the future of windows with windows 8 I think about tablets being heavier to run the x86 architecture and I wonder why not just use something like intels widi and transmit only the picture to a tablet and have a server plugged in doing all the processing, maybe even running another instance or switchable session of the OS attached to a standard desktop display/keyboard mouse. The tablet would of course still need a processor but only to process a ready to go image, audio and to interpret touch inputs and transmit them to the server. This would allow for larger batteries and be much more cost effective in the long run.
Of course we will still need today's style for outside the home/office but like the desktop there is still a market for the LAN only machines.
Maybe this is already available and someone can point me to where I can buy it now! :x

You want the cloud? Not ready yet. Until then, splashtop will have to do. Also, botnet.

jdeoxys said:
You want the cloud? Not ready yet. Until then, splashtop will have to do. Also, botnet.
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No, nothing over the internet. I'm simply talking about a wireless display with a battery but one that can transmit touch inputs. Not sure how else to put it but if you have seen the wireless transmitter and receivers for HDMI, similar to this.

Does anyone see where I'm going with this? Windows 8 is touch screen but the best I could find that are desktop-like is the dell ST2220T which only has 2 touch points that is not cetified for windows 8 which I believe accepts up to 4.
Next I looked at tablets and there are a few budget(if you can call $500 with a small display, bad/slow graphics card and little storage budget) that look promising but could easily have 100 hardware issues that would drive me nuts and then theres the name brand stuff like samsungs $1,000 pc tablets which still suffer from built in gpu's that suck.
My idea would simply be the cost of a screen and battery if you already own a desktop with say, intel widi (wireless display) and some sort of input receiver to receive the touch commands from the tablet display. The performance would be virtually unlimited!

Are you basically talking about a device that connects through your local network to a transmitting PC running an OS of your choosing? Sort of like a portable monitor that doubles as a touchscreen?

Constant wifi or similar connection would drain the battery as well. Also, that would require a whole separate computer to run the system itself (if you're doing it at home), or a fast, VERY low latency broadband connection to a cloud (so forget about the device being very cheap just because you have to somehow pay for the server-side as well). Otherwise you'd be struggling with laggy UI which is the exact opposite of what everyone wants.
So... not for a few more years... or decades

Tristanlogd said:
Are you basically talking about a device that connects through your local network to a transmitting PC running an OS of your choosing? Sort of like a portable monitor that doubles as a touchscreen?
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Like a portable monitor with touchscreen that transmits touch inputs/commands wirelessly back to the desktop just like a mouse.
I don't think transmitting through networks is a good idea and thats why I mentioned the Intel WIDI wireless display technology that is already in most new Inte'ls so all we would really need to change on the PC side is a customized wireless receiver for the touch inputs.
Hell, I'm thinking about calling a friend who is an EE and getting something made if nobody else is...lol.

aard said:
Constant wifi or similar connection would drain the battery as well. Also, that would require a whole separate computer to run the system itself (if you're doing it at home), or a fast, VERY low latency broadband connection to a cloud (so forget about the device being very cheap just because you have to somehow pay for the server-side as well). Otherwise you'd be struggling with laggy UI which is the exact opposite of what everyone wants.
So... not for a few more years... or decades
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Eh the technology is here with http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/intel-wireless-display.html
Using wifi isn't efficient, but tablets use most of their energy on the display and processing. Since all you would be doing is signal processing vs actual computation @ the tablet end you would use considerably less juice. Like Half.

You are talking direct wireless connection from tablet to monitor, not going through a wireless router or connection? Interesting idea, but why not just go through a wireless connection? Wouldn't this also kind of tether you to your pc? Splashtop or Logmein allows you to do this anywhere.

Tristanlogd said:
You are talking direct wireless connection from tablet to monitor, not going through a wireless router or connection? Interesting idea, but why not just go through a wireless connection? Wouldn't this also kind of tether you to your pc? Splashtop or Logmein allows you to do this anywhere.
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All I'm talking about is a PC or laptop with a second display thats wireless. Then we call it a tablet because it has a touch screen that sends signals back to the PC or laptop to move the mouse or rather gestures. Not cloud computing, I have done this and it's terrible. Cloud is basically remote desktop which is choppy and worse then current tablets. What I'm talking about would make the performance increase as Intel claims virtually no latency with WIDI and even 5 milliseconds would be hard to notice considering how laggy android is as it's basically a virtual machine.
Hereis a clip I just found, not sure if it's available yet but:
Now ASUS brings another solution to the table, the WiCast, which can be connected to any computer and any television and promises latency-free 1080p video and audio.

advice needed for mini pc project

I want to design a program that will run on an Android Mini PC. It'll be connected to any monitor so that when the monitor is turned on, it'll power up the android mini pc via USB (monitor will be required to have USB port) and then the program will start automatically and display on the monitor.
The program itself is a visual acuity chart (like at your eye doctor's office). So it will run all day as you use an RF remote to flip through the images.
Sound easy? I'm trying to figure out if Android or Raspberry Pi would be best for this.
Thanks

Pretty cool idea. The only thing I can think of is Android on the Android sticks allows a customizable boot animation which would be cool to create your own for marketing. The Android sticks are also faster and boot quicker so less wait.
You can also remote desktop into a more powerful machine to offload some work. Essentially have a server as the mainframe.
Android will also require you program it to run at startup. I'm not sure how you do this without a 3rd party app, but I know some apps that load on startup.
Both units are tiny and the android sticks include wifi and there are some Bluetooth models. The Raspberry Pi has neither. And boots slower and isn't powerful.
I think its an easy choice.
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player911 said:
Android will also require you program it to run at startup. I'm not sure how you do this without a 3rd party app, but I know some apps that load on startup.
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ok, so it would at least be possible but I'd need some intricate coding and extra apps which is ok with me. thanks

You need to look at the power requirements of the Android Mini PC as well. Often they draw more power than is available through TV and monitor USB ports. You might get enough power to run the mini PC but if you have wifi, wireless keyboard/mouse, bluetooth and other devices the power draw might exceed the output of the monitor. This is something I am interested in as well as I am trying to resolve the power on/off problem on these mini PCs. The probox has a remote with a power button but I've heard the remote has problems with distances more than 1M.

strongsad said:
You need to look at the power requirements of the Android Mini PC as well. Often they draw more power than is available through TV and monitor USB ports. You might get enough power to run the mini PC but if you have wifi, wireless keyboard/mouse, bluetooth and other devices the power draw might exceed the output of the monitor. This is something I am interested in as well as I am trying to resolve the power on/off problem on these mini PCs. The probox has a remote with a power button but I've heard the remote has problems with distances more than 1M.
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I won't need BT, wifi, or really anything. I need to find someone that thinks he can tackle this project. Any good places to hire someone for this type of work?

apparker said:
I won't need BT, wifi, or really anything. I need to find someone that thinks he can tackle this project. Any good places to hire someone for this type of work?
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Couldn't you use tasker or locale or something similar to run an app on startup? Just an idea...

[Q] Remote controlling my another android device?

Is there an app that will let me "remote desktop" into another phone? My mom also has an android device (HTC Rezound). But she can't even set the clock on her VCR (yes, VCR) let alone manage her phone. I would like to be able to remote control it to do stuff for her. I do this same thing with her computer using VNC or RDP. It doesn't matter if my end uses my phone or PC, as long as I can remote control her phone. Preferably without root.

MCL1981 said:
Is there an app that will let me "remote desktop" into another phone? My mom also has an android device (HTC Rezound). But she can't even set the clock on her VCR (yes, VCR) let alone manage her phone. I would like to be able to remote control it to do stuff for her. I do this same thing with her computer using VNC or RDP. It doesn't matter if my end uses my phone or PC, as long as I can remote control her phone. Preferably without root.
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I has 2 android phone and 1 tab .and my girl has 1 too.. i just registered each device to samsung service named find my phone
(You may google it) just register your phone nomber and then go to setting then security and device administratoion then activate the service named Android Device Manager.. now you ll be able to track and full control registered device thorough web browser on pc or your android web browser as long as the tracked phone has a internet connection .. this will turn on gps automaticly for get stats..or wipe an lock the phone remotly
Thanked if helped
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Display slowly dying, options for using the phone without one?

The display on my S7 started slowly dying, I estimate it will be fully dead in a few weeks. A replacement costs almost 100$, not including work, so it's probably going to stay like it is. I still want to use the phone however, for app development or music or similar stuff.
Is there any way to mirror the display or use some kind of VNC? I don't have a smart TV but several computers, not sure if miracast works on those.
I would also like the mirroring to start automatically or at least through some adb command line, because I will likely not see anything on the screen.

Replying to myself: found a relatively good option that's also free: https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy

I've installed TeamViewer Host on my S7 and it works great over wifi. I tried controlling my android device from Windows, MacOS and another android device, but it should work on linux and ios too.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teamviewer.host.market