Feature Request: Send routing information over Bluetooth LE (BLE)

[euphi]

🚀Send routing information over BLE

Description

It would be very helpful to show routing information on external device. BLE is ideal for this. Osmand should offer a BLE service that publishes routing information.

I'm creating my own bicycle computer and was looking if any navigation app already offers such a possibilty. I found that the komoot app offers such a possibility (see https://www.komoot.de/b2b/connect or https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iYgV4lDKG8LdCuYwzTXpt3FLO_kaoJGGWzai8yehv6g ) and would really appreciate if something like this could be added to osmand.

Describe the solution you'd like

The Komoot solutions lacks some feature, so what I wish is:

• Advertise a navigation service on BLE as soon as navigation is active
• Offer a characteristic that sends a notification whenever the navigation information changes or distance is below a threshold (e.g. 100m, triggered in the same way as voice announcements).
  • this notification may be an update notification only, so that the external device must read full information.
• That characteristic shall also be readable so the external device can update its information whenever it whishes
• Information shall include:
  • (byte): ENUM for navigation type (left turn, right turn, 4th of 5th roundabout exit etc...)
  • (int16): Distance
  • String: Road name
  • (byte): ENUM for navigation type after next turn
  • (int16): Distance after next turn

To be discussed:

• current speed (so external device can countdown distance without own speed information)
• date & time to sync clock --> this should be extra characteristics
• POI characteristic (notify/read) to inform about POI along the route
• lane assistant characteristic
• map characteristic (read) to get a mini-map for complicated routing information --> this is quite challenging to transmit sufficient, but non-confusing amount of information in a small bitmap (e.g. 32x32).

Describe alternatives you've considered

For now I use komoot, which however has several drawbacks compared to osmand:

• in general not as good routing as osmand, especially if you plan a route ad-hoc
• route-recalculation often needs confirmation on display (not possibly on external devices)
• often uses generic road names that may be ambigious

If you're interested, here are links to the C++ code to receive komoot information and show it on a display with ESP32-S3 (Arduino / lvgl). I would be happy to adapt it to a osmand BLE solution :-D (and promise to provide also simple example code for Arduino-ESP32 )

BLE:

• https://github.com/euphi/TRGB-BikeComputer/blob/29407c3d492ee1464bb96853e61059830bd64072/src/BLEDevices.cpp#L277

UI:

• https://github.com/euphi/TRGB-BikeComputer/blob/main/src/ui/ui_NaviCustFunc.c
• https://github.com/euphi/TRGB-BikeComputer/blob/main/src/ui/ui_Navi.h
• https://github.com/euphi/TRGB-BikeComputer/blob/29407c3d492ee1464bb96853e61059830bd64072/src/UIFacade.cpp#L184

Nav-Icons (roundabouts still missing):

• https://github.com/euphi/TRGB-BikeComputer/tree/main/doc/Resources/Images

[Zirochkabila]

@euphi Duplicate https://github.com/osmandapp/OsmAnd/issues/15459?

[euphi]

@Zirochkabila no, direction of information flow is opposite in #15459.

Also, there is no need to have "fixed" connections/pairing for my proposal.

[Zirochkabila]

@euphi Agree

[euphi]

Photo of how navigation on external device looks like

[Radiokot]

For those interested in this functionality: you can check out my implementation of step-by-step directions broadcasting to a BLE device using a companion app and AIDL interface: https://github.com/Radiokot/osmand-display-app https://github.com/Radiokot/osmand-display-app/blob/main/app/src/main/java/ua/com/radiokot/osmanddisplay/features/broadcasting/logic/DirectionsBroadcastingService.kt I also used it for a bike navigation display 🙂

[euphi]

So the Osmand AIDL interface could be used for an extra app that provides information via BLE. However, to make the feature useful more information must be provided on AIDL.

• The DirectionInfo (https://github.com/osmandapp/OsmAnd/blob/master/OsmAnd/src/net/osmand/aidl/navigation/ADirectionInfo.java) shall contain:

  • distance (already exists)
  • turn type (already exists)
  • target name (street name or information like "track", "single trail", "Road St2342" ...)

• The NavigationInfoUpdate shall provide a second DirectionInfo with the instructions for the next turn after the current one.

• The AIDL interface shall offer a callback for navigation information:

  • time, distance & bearing to target
  • time, distance & bearing to next waypoint

• The AIDL interface shall offer a callback for lane assistant. (This can be very useful in city traffic).

• The AIDL interface shall offer a callback that provides a location info with following information:

  • heading
  • travelled distances
  • speed
  • Optional: Location (coordinates)

Note: Heading and bearing could be useful to indicate on some kind of compass, if the external BLE devices uses an inertial sensor).

Nice to have:

• Improve bicycle navigation in general. E.g. support turn types like "switch to bike lane on right side" (instead of a right turn immediately followed by a left one). The lane assistant could be used for such a features if it supports different lane types.

[u0nel]

you can already call get_info, which returns the current and destination location, the eta, the time left, something called "time_distance_left", the name of the next two turns, the distances to them, the turn type and the turn angle

[Radiokot]

you can already call get_info

Unfortunately, the command is only available as an intent, it is impossible to use from a service. Having it in the AIDL interface would be great.

[u0nel]

I added some more more information to the navigation updates in my fork: https://github.com/u0nel/OsmAnd It now returns the distance, the turntype and streetname for the next two turns, the time and distance left for the full navigation and the current speed.