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DISCOOS / rescue-me

Light-weight and minimalistic system for push-based location requests.
rescueme.io
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Add RescueMe Admin Mobile App #25

Open kengu opened 11 years ago

kengu commented 11 years ago

PhoneGap enables us to implement cross-platform mobile apps using HTML5, css and js that is able to send SMS directly from mobile devices. This allows anyone with a smart phone to send location pull-request directly. It will requires supported by a configurable (url and credentials in preferences) RescueMe Backend, which receives location reports from persons of interest. The app could receive these position reports asynchronously (WebSocket/Server Push), or by pulling them from the server manually.

The following features are required

svenove commented 11 years ago

IMO, this is a low-pri feature. The only "extra" this gives us is an option of sending the SMS directly from the phone (no need of SMS-provider) (or is there something I'm not seeing?).

But, the amount of time needed to add this and the security considerations needed might not weigh up for the features this gives.

Thoughts?

kengu commented 11 years ago

I was more thinking backup solution here, where the location requester is without data connection. The app sends a SMS to person of interest. When person of interest has responded and a location report is received by the server, it uses the SMS provider associated with the user signed into the app to send the reported position as a SMS. The app parses this SMS and presents it in a list (and offline-map if possible). This would be helpful on-route. Of course, it can be discussed if this is a scenario worth spending time on. Is it likely that persons of interest have a data connection, when the person of concern does not? I don't know. But it is worth considering.

svenove commented 11 years ago

But the app would need a dataconnection anyway, to actually register the person of interest and get an URL to send...? Unless, we implement the URL differently, containing some ID of the person of concern and the phonenumber of the person of interest, then it would be possible to create an incident without the person of concern having a dataconnection.

But, as you say, how likely is that scenario? In my experience EDGE-connection and GSM-connection is often equal - I can't recall the last time I had just GSM and no dataconnection...

We could implement a more "appish" feel of the webgui, so that when adding it to the homescreen of a smartphone, it looks just like a regular app when launched (icon, no menybar, no backbrower-buttons, etc). It could also cache the JS/CSS-parts by using the "HTML Manifest"-feature of HTML5, making the bandwithrequirements to a minimum. Of cource, that approch won't make us independent of an SMS-provider (unless we add the option of disabling SMS-sending and just giving the link for the person of concern to send out manually).

kengu commented 11 years ago

I agree, it is low priority. I could make it easier to promote though. But do we want that? I don't know. I'll add two more issue categories: {low, high}, marking this as low.

svenove commented 11 years ago

+1