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I don't have enough posts to query the development forums, but can anyone confirm whether or not they've gotten bluetooth smart/4.0 BLE working with any of the available 4.3 based roms?
I've been holding out on buying a Bluetooth HRM for a long time, now (actually bought this phone BECAUSE it advertised bluetooth 4.0 as a feature....), and may be willing to lose touchwiz to use one, early.
Yes, I'm aware legacy bluetooth HRM's are available, but I know myself well enough to know I won't remember to charge it every day or two.
Thank you very much, in advance.
heyman421 said:
I don't have enough posts to query the development forums, but can anyone confirm whether or not they've gotten bluetooth smart/4.0 BLE working with any of the available 4.3 based roms?
I've been holding out on buying a Bluetooth HRM for a long time, now (actually bought this phone BECAUSE it advertised bluetooth 4.0 as a feature....), and may be willing to lose touchwiz to use one, early.
Yes, I'm aware legacy bluetooth HRM's are available, but I know myself well enough to know I won't remember to charge it every day or two.
Thank you very much, in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I really want to know the answer to this also.
I got an email from Runtastic July 31 claiming the following:
"
Runtastic Bluetooth Smart Combo Heart Rate Monitor
NEW - Compatible with all new Smaprtphones with Android 4.3. and
Samsung Galaxy S3 mini, S4, Note 2.
+ Compatible with iPhone 4S & 5
+ Low battery consumption
+ For outdoor and indoor fitness
activities (e.g. treadmill, ...)
+ Heart rate data transmission
+ Bluetooth Smart technology
+ Washable soft chest strap
[Buy Now]
"
I said, "Wait.... What!?" It seems like I've been waiting for this for years at this point. I wanted an H7, not an old zephyr hxm, but it hasn't been compatible. Now suddenly they claim the runtastic model works on the Note 2? There's no official 4.3, is there?? I searched these forums, best I could find was CM 10.2 derived ROMS, but they all say it includes CM's bug list--but I couldn't find that anywhere either. All I can figure is this was a misprint.
I'm with you, I care about this also, but I don't think enough people do.
soba49 said:
I really want to know the answer to this also./QUOTE]
I finally sucked it up and bought the legacy zephyr HRM.
It cost $15 more than the BT-LE version, and the battery life is crap, but I'm happy and endomondo seems a LOT more accurate, now.
This phone is dumb. Google needs to get their crap together, or put a leash on their representative manufacturers advertising unusable phone features.
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Click to collapse
It works great on any of the TW based ROMs, but as far as the 4.3 based ones, it is getting closer. Tried a few of the nightlies since a couple of weeks ago and my Fitbit finally shows up in CM10.2, but still won't pair. This is one of the few things keeping me from running CM10.2 full-time.
I keep flashing a nightly every few days just to check progress, but end up going back to my nandroid TW backup.
Does this work with CM 10.2 and/or CM11 nowadays? I'm thinking of buying a Fitbit and was wondering if it will sync with the phone.
mising said:
It works great on any of the TW based ROMs, but as far as the 4.3 based ones, it is getting closer. Tried a few of the nightlies since a couple of weeks ago and my Fitbit finally shows up in CM10.2, but still won't pair. This is one of the few things keeping me from running CM10.2 full-time.
I keep flashing a nightly every few days just to check progress, but end up going back to my nandroid TW backup.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can confirm that the Zephyr HxM Smart does in fact work on 4.3 TW ROMs. Specifically RunDouble and Runtastic on Sophisticated ROM 2.5.
Hi!
I have been a heavy user of custom ROMs for more than three years now on all my Android devices. Lately, although I have a phone that not so long ago was still Samsung's flagship (the galaxy S4, I9505), the pictures I get with it really suck. A couple weeks ago, the phone could not detect my SIM card (pure hardware issue), so I re-installed the stock firmware and took it to the repair shop to get the warranty repair. They fixed it and I got my phone back. Just to make sure it was working fine, I decided to use the stock ROM for a while, and oh surprise: the camera takes much better pics in low light conditions or indoor than the same camera with any custom ROM app (usually AOSP-based, AOKP or CM-based). I tried to download the Google camera, and the low light pictures really suck. Then I tried a bunch of camera apps from the Play store, but I invariably got similar results to what I got with my custom ROMs.
That got me thinking. I'm no dev nor programmer, so I won't get technical, but it seems to me that there can be two reasons for the samsung app to work better:
- Either it has access to (proprietary) hardware drivers that other camera apps cannot access, and therefore it can get everything out of the camera hardware
- Or Samsung (which is not known to be great for its software) has developed a great camera software.
I would think it's something along the lines of the first reason. So does that mean I am either stuck with a ROM I cannot stand (Touchwiz is awful, has always been, and may always be) and a decent camera, or a decent ROM but a camera that is kind of useless when I'm indoor?
If so, how are the cameras on other similar phones (I'm thinking Nexus 5, Sony Xperia, etc.), running on custom ROMs compared to the stock camera apps? Is there also a noticeable difference, or is it just with Samsung?
I understood that you cannot run the Samsung camera apk on a custom ROM (even one on a Samsung phone), because the camera relies on some kind of Samsung proprietary framework.
Does this mean I should be looking for a phone that is running not only on open source software, but also open source hardware, does that even exist?
Anyone has noticed something similar? Am I the only one to be bothered by this?
I'll post here a couple pics taken in the same ambient light conditions. One with the Samsung camera (Auto setting), one with Google camera, and one with another camera app from the market (don't remember which one, but I tested about 15 of them and their results were quite similar).
Anyway, even if you don' have a solution to the problem but can point me to information that could help me understand how to choose my next phone, I would really appreciate. Thanks!
Cheers,
Fa
fabecoool said:
Hi!
I have been a heavy user of custom ROMs for more than three years now on all my Android devices. Lately, although I have a phone that not so long ago was still Samsung's flagship (the galaxy S4, I9505), the pictures I get with it really suck. A couple weeks ago, the phone could not detect my SIM card (pure hardware issue), so I re-installed the stock firmware and took it to the repair shop to get the warranty repair. They fixed it and I got my phone back. Just to make sure it was working fine, I decided to use the stock ROM for a while, and oh surprise: the camera takes much better pics in low light conditions or indoor than the same camera with any custom ROM app (usually AOSP-based, AOKP or CM-based). I tried to download the Google camera, and the low light pictures really suck. Then I tried a bunch of camera apps from the Play store, but I invariably got similar results to what I got with my custom ROMs.
That got me thinking. I'm no dev nor programmer, so I won't get technical, but it seems to me that there can be two reasons for the samsung app to work better:
- Either it has access to (proprietary) hardware drivers that other camera apps cannot access, and therefore it can get everything out of the camera hardware
- Or Samsung (which is not known to be great for its software) has developed a great camera software.
I would think it's something along the lines of the first reason. So does that mean I am either stuck with a ROM I cannot stand (Touchwiz is awful, has always been, and may always be) and a decent camera, or a decent ROM but a camera that is kind of useless when I'm indoor?
If so, how are the cameras on other similar phones (I'm thinking Nexus 5, Sony Xperia, etc.), running on custom ROMs compared to the stock camera apps? Is there also a noticeable difference, or is it just with Samsung?
I understood that you cannot run the Samsung camera apk on a custom ROM (even one on a Samsung phone), because the camera relies on some kind of Samsung proprietary framework.
Does this mean I should be looking for a phone that is running not only on open source software, but also open source hardware, does that even exist?
Anyone has noticed something similar? Am I the only one to be bothered by this?
I'll post here a couple pics taken in the same ambient light conditions. One with the Samsung camera (Auto setting), one with Google camera, and one with another camera app from the market (don't remember which one, but I tested about 15 of them and their results were quite similar).
Anyway, even if you don' have a solution to the problem but can point me to information that could help me understand how to choose my next phone, I would really appreciate. Thanks!
Cheers,
Fa
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So here come the pics. Of course XDA compresses them, but you'll get the idea.
Fa
That is the example difference between things that are built for the device over using open-source options. Software will always be better from the OEM. You see the same thing with HTC and Sony devices. Take the m7 and m8. They have great cameras as long as you use HTC Sense. Other wise all you get is a basic 4 mpx camera that sucks. If you want one that works the same no matter the rom then get a nexus. This is something OEM are doing to make people want to use their software
Thanks @zelendel,
A Nexus could be an option, but the screen size of the Nexus 5 was already too large for me (and so is my current phone, the Galaxy S4), so there's no way I'm getting a Nexus 6 (plus it's prohibitively expensive, at least here in Europe). When will Google make a Nexus mini or compact? That would rock, especially if they go the Sony way (not compromising too much on hardware features). The only downside of Nexus phone is their lack of MicroSD card slot, but that's off topic.
Anyway, what about the Google Edition phones? As I understand, they have the same hardware as their OEM counterpart (don't they?), but instead of running on proprietary stock ROMs, they ship with a pure Vanilla Android. Does this mean they ship with a camera that sucks, or is there some kind of tweak included to get the most of the camera with those editions, too? If so, would flashing that ROM help (if I can get my hands on it)? Unfortunately it seems the whole Google Edition concept has not gained a lot of traction (maybe because of the unavailability of the handsets in many places, maybe thanks to the OEM who did not play fair game and rather managed to get their crappy proprietary stock versions in the hands of customers), so I'm trying not to get too excited about this either.
I guess I will have to go to my local phone shop, spend time there with different devices and see if some of them have less heavily customized skins than TouchWiz. That means I'll no longer go for a Samsung, which have been my only devices so far. The end of an era...
fabecoool said:
Thanks @zelendel,
A Nexus could be an option, but the screen size of the Nexus 5 was already too large for me (and so is my current phone, the Galaxy S4), so there's no way I'm getting a Nexus 6 (plus it's prohibitively expensive, at least here in Europe). When will Google make a Nexus mini or compact? That would rock, especially if they go the Sony way (not compromising too much on hardware features). The only downside of Nexus phone is their lack of MicroSD card slot, but that's off topic.
Anyway, what about the Google Edition phones? As I understand, they have the same hardware as their OEM counterpart (don't they?), but instead of running on proprietary stock ROMs, they ship with a pure Vanilla Android. Does this mean they ship with a camera that sucks, or is there some kind of tweak included to get the most of the camera with those editions, too? If so, would flashing that ROM help (if I can get my hands on it)? Unfortunately it seems the whole Google Edition concept has not gained a lot of traction (maybe because of the unavailability of the handsets in many places, maybe thanks to the OEM who did not play fair game and rather managed to get their crappy proprietary stock versions in the hands of customers), so I'm trying not to get too excited about this either.
I guess I will have to go to my local phone shop, spend time there with different devices and see if some of them have less heavily customized skins than TouchWiz. That means I'll no longer go for a Samsung, which have been my only devices so far. The end of an era...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The GPE device dont come with stock android completely. I have a GPE HTC M7 and the gpe software has some of the closed sourced drivers and such for things like Beats audio and the camera. As I run pure AOSP I wind up with a 4mpx camera that really sucks. While i agree alot of the newer devices have huge screens that make it almost pointless for me. The m7 is not bad at about 5in. But then again it doesnt have an SD card slot but comes with 32gb of storage which I think is plenty for my use. Part of me misses my old samsung devices but I made the mistake once of getting the one with the Samsungs chip and not the snapdragon which killed development.
zelendel said:
The GPE device dont come with stock android completely. I have a GPE HTC M7 and the gpe software has some of the closed sourced drivers and such for things like Beats audio and the camera. As I run pure AOSP I wind up with a 4mpx camera that really sucks. While i agree alot of the newer devices have huge screens that make it almost pointless for me. The m7 is not bad at about 5in. But then again it doesnt have an SD card slot but comes with 32gb of storage which I think is plenty for my use. Part of me misses my old samsung devices but I made the mistake once of getting the one with the Samsungs chip and not the snapdragon which killed development.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Alright! Well, if I could find the GPE edition for my phone (I9505), then I would get all the camera features and none of the TouchWiz crap, which would already be quite an improvement over what I have now (complete TW stock). I guess another possibility would be to flash a stock based ROM that is rooted and from which I could remove all the bloatware...
OK, the hunt is on for a new ROM!
Cheers!
Fa
fabecoool said:
Alright! Well, if I could find the GPE edition for my phone (I9505), then I would get all the camera features and none of the TouchWiz crap, which would already be quite an improvement over what I have now (complete TW stock). I guess another possibility would be to flash a stock based ROM that is rooted and from which I could remove all the bloatware...
OK, the hunt is on for a new ROM!
Cheers!
Fa
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you want all the features of the camera then yes I would run a stock de bloated rom. I used to run Samsung devices and you can remove most things which will give you the camera app which has all the best features.
Hello dear people, I hope I can be forgiven for asking a potentially stupid question.
With my 850F batteries failing, I am hoping to get some more months out of this once expensive phone. So I've been looking at some custom ROMs to see if they make a difference. But it seems like the fingerprint reader never works. People tell me it's because the driver source isn't available.
So, is this a question of legality (the driver cannot legally be included with roms) or of possibility (the driver is deeply dug in)? Because if it's the former, I was wondering if there's some file I can take out of the stock firmware and put onto my phone to make the fingerprint reader work with any rom?
Also, I would like to express my dissatisfaction with the terrible support Samsung has given for this phone. We got one late update from Kit Kat to Lollipop. It looks so vanilla it makes one wonder why it took so long. The black background colors from Kit Kat changed to white, a terrible choice for an OLED screen. So with regard to the already meager battery, this update has been a regression.
I'm trying to get as many months out of this phone as I can until the next generation of phones comes out. I love the Samsung hardware but I might look for brands that are either more frequent with updates or open source enough so that custom firmware development is not hindered by unsupported hardware.
I'm thinking the next phone should just be under 5 inch and powerful enough to be a desktop computer running full Linux, like Ubuntu OTA 11 (if someone introduces Android compatibility) or Maru OS, so I don't have to carry around a laptop anymore.
Fingerprint scanner works fine with all Samsung based ROMs (OzcanROM and EpsilROM) only CM ROMs (CM and ResurrectionRemix) don't support it (aswell as heart rate monitor)
93drago said:
Fingerprint scanner works fine with all Samsung based ROMs (OzcanROM and EpsilROM) only CM ROMs (CM and ResurrectionRemix) don't support it (aswell as heart rate monitor)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hadn't even thought of the heartrate monitor yet!
Yes, I tried those non-Samsung ROMs. I thought if I use the Samsung-based ROMs, I might as well use the Samsung ROM.
Because they use proprietary drivers, and samsung does not disponibilize them, well, when marshmallow launch, its is POSSIBLE that Samsung bundle the source code with a generic fingerprint driver, as fingerprints reader support is a generic and system wide thing in MM, just like when hardware acceleration via GPU was an propietary thing in android 2.3 and being default on android 4.0
Out of all of the devices out there that support LineageOS, the Z5 Compact looks the most appealing to me, because of the good audio quality, nice design/build, and reasonable size.
But is it foolish to purchase a Z5C with the intention of using it to run a custom ROMs?
Are people here using custom ROMs purely as a stopgap until they can get a newer phone that supports Oreo? I don't need or want the latest, greatest hardware, but ever since buying my first smartphone (a Nexus) I've become accustomed to using the latest software. Is the Z5 Compact a dead end in that regard? Or is it likely that I'll be using Android P and Q on this device in the next couple of years?
"But Strobelite, if you're worried about being able to use the latest version of Android, why don't you just get something by Motorola? Those have a healthy, active developer community. Or, you could just be a normal person, and buy a new phone."
If it runs GApps, I won't use it
Audio quality is important to me
The Motorola phones are ugly, in my opinion
Hi, since a few weeks I'm running on LineageOS 14.1 with my z5 Compact and I don't miss the stock rom at all. I didn't test all features yet (e.g. MHL), but I'm very satisfied until now. It's stable (didn't encounter any random reboot), fast and battery life is ok for me (I use Amplify and Greenify with xposed).
I only can recommend this and if you want to run without GApps, this is the way to go. I'm using Yalp store and it's even faster updating my apps than the original Play store.
Phone has FM Radio, SD card slot, fast and accurate GPS and enough power (LOS doesn't seem to run as hot as the stock rom (you can choose between performance profiles), so it's another plus for me).
Just try it and see if it works for you.
The only thing that annoyed me is the camera, the quality is just bad and sometimes it doesn't focus (or too late)
If you dont miss the camera then yes.
Strobelite said:
But is it foolish to purchase a Z5C with the intention of using it to run a custom ROMs?
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Click to collapse
I can understand your problem but of course it is imo.
Z5 line has never been widely supported by developers and the Compact is the one with less roms now. You can imagine what kind of future it would have.
Luckily in the past we had great guys who made stock rom root/mods/DRM restoration but the AOSP scene is completely different. As always you lose some features with non-stock roms, usually Camera quality (because you lose closed source vendor optimizations/software) and minor ones.
There will be probably 1 or 2 roms for future android versions (thanks to projects like SLim rom, PAC, Resurrection,...) but there are already few mantainers, especially for the Z5c, and some aosp roms are also unofficially maintained by one person...
Sony lost people (and developers) appeal after the Z3 line and this gets reflected in custom rom support for the newer Xperia lines. If you really want the latest OS on your phone for the next 4 years you should go for something else imo.
Z5c is still great device, refined materials and with good battery but don't expect a forum support like Samsungs, Huaweis,... Unfortunately the old days where flagship phones were < 4,5" are gone.
Maybe you already know it but GSMarena has a great phone-finder search engine which can help you refine your search for compact products.
Any possible way to root? Bootloader unlock? Any possible GSIs and ROMs I could maybe get it to work?
I'd say it's a real decent device in it's category, but unfortunately it's modding support is really undocumented and lacking;(
I have only found and talked with the creator of this optimization/debloat guide for the Xiaomi TV Stick (non-4K, the old one) and have used most of his modifications (and learned what they can break, but not hard to fix since I can re-enable when I want that specific feature): https://sites.google.com/site/tweakradje/devices/xiaomi-mi-tv-stick
but they seem and I'd assume them to be pretty lacking for the much different and newer software the Xiaomi TV Stick 4K runs, so I'm open to any help and suggestions getting the most out of this device