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/