AVPhone FAQ

What is AV Phone?

AV Phone is a mobile application, it sends data to AirVantage as a simulated object. By default, the app simulates a connected printer that sends mobile network data and simulated printing operations data to AirVantage periodically.

It provides an easy way to populate your AirVantage account with both mobile network and asset data, for platform evaluation use.

AV Phone is available in 2 versions: Android and iOS, they are available for free download from the respective app store.

Prerequisites

A Smartphone or Tablet PC (see: Compatible devices)
An AirVantage account. Get a free trial account: https://eu.airvantage.net/accounts/signup?type=AVEP

Getting started

Download “Sierra Wireless AV Phone” from Google Play/ Apple App Store and install it on your phone
When AV Phone opens, log in to your AirVantage account
The app will automatically create a system for your phone on AirVantage
Please do authorize the app to retrieve phone location
Toggle on the “Send Data…” switch to start sending data! To stop sending data, simply toggle the “Send data…” switch to the off state.

The data is now waiting for you in your AirVantage account! Check it out!

Features

Both AV Phone apps offer the same functionalities, but they look slightly different:

iOS version	Android version

How does it work?

Send data to AirVantage

Turn on the “Send data…” switch to start sending data from your phone to AirVantage periodically. You can leave the app running in the background, it will continue sending data.

To stop sending data, toggle the “Send data…” switch to the off state, or log out from the application.

View data in your AirVantage account

You can find the data in your AirVantage account this way:

Use a web browser to log in to your AirVantage account
Click on the “Monitor”/ “Systems”
Click on the system with your phone’s name to see the details
Click on the “Timeline” button to see all communications sent by your phone

The iOS version always starts by sending communications without data (Data point = 0). It will start sending the application data after a delay of max 2 minutes.

Please do not modify or delete your phone’s system from the AirVantage web portal, this may impact the mobile app operation (as the app may no longer be able to identify the system on the AirVantage account).

Send Alarm (alert message)

You can send an alert message to AirVantage by clicking on the “Send Alarm” switch. This alert is not associated with any data threshold, it is for illustrating the data push capability only.

Customize the simulated data

The iOS and Android version allow the users to store multiple simulated object profiles in the app, and activate anyone of it at any time.

Android version:

Create a new simulated object as follows:

Click on the Menu icon on the top left corner
Click on “Simulated objects” / “Edit”
Click on “Add” to create a new object and fill in the descriptions (For example: Name: Compressor; Alarm: High pressure!; List of data: “Pressure”, “Temperature” …)
Click on “Save”, then “Done”
Back to the menu, you can now select this newly created object (e.g. Compressor) by clicking on it

In the object menu edition, you can resync all objects to AirVantage.

iOS version:

Create a new simulated object as follows:

Click on the Menu icon on the top left corner
Click on “Simulated objects” / “Edit”
Click on “+” to create a new object and fill in the descriptions (For example: Name: Compressor; Alarm: High pressure!; List of data: “Pressure”, “Temperature”…)
Click on “Save”, then “Done”
Back to the menu, you can now select to active this newly created object (e.g. Compressor) by clicking on it

Source code access

The Android version source code can be accessed on github here under the MIT License (see License.md file in the repository).

Frequently Asked Questions

Compatible devices

Android devices running Android 5.1 and onwards
Apple iOS devices running iOS8 and onwards including
- iphone 4S, 5 / 5S, 6 / 6+
- iPad2 (Cellular only)
- iPad Air / iPar Air 2

This is the web address (URL) that you use to log in to your AirVantage account with a web browser. If you do not recall this information, refer to the welcome email message from Sierra Wireless upon the AirVantage account creation.

How can I modify the communication frequency?

For the iOS version, click on “Settings” of your phone. Look for “AVPhone” in the app list, and select the “Frequency” options : 1, 2, or 5 minutes.

For the Android version, click on the Menu, click on Settings and change the Push data period options: 1, 2, 5 or 15 minutes

Can I change the variable and the system name?

If sending data about Printer suits the most of the use cases, you may want to customize the data label. The configure tab allows you to change these labels automatically.

You can see the data you can use by clicking on the Application Details in Monitor > System > System Details view > Application Details bubble.

On the iOS version

You can choose how to simulate each data by selecting up, down or string to respectively increment, decrease the value or not change it.

Only the labels are changed, the data id (or data path) are not modified. If you want to get it using the AirVantage API, nothing is required to be changed.

On the Android version

You can choice how to simulate each data by selecting increase indefinitely, decrease to zero, random or None. For the decrease to zero simulation, the value is reset to initial value when it reaches 0. You can choice also the data path for the value.

The label and the data path can be changed.

Click on the Save button when you have finished

You can change the system name on AirVantage to fit your business case.

Why my smartphone stops to send the GPS location?

You mustn’t put the application in background mode. In this case, the smartphone stops the application in order to save power.

Be aware battery consumption is high in this case.

Troubleshooting

If your app is frozen, you can close the app (on an iOS device, double tap the “Home” button to see the list of background apps, and remove AV Phone from this list) and re-open it again).

For the Android version, if you receive an invalid user when you try to send data, you can try to resync all the objects to AirVantage (Menu > Edit > Resync All).

Feedback/ Technical Support

If you have any feedback or question, please use the “Feedback” button in the AirVantage web portal to contact us.

Hope you enjoy using the AV Phone! Happy IoT building!

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