970825 - [MADAI][System] During low battery certain applications should not be allowed to launch

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox OS Graveyard :: Gaia::System, defect)

Description

[Sharaf]

During low battery scenario certain applications like Camera and Video should not be allowed to launch if battery level is less than 5%. The system should show a popup to the user "Battery too low to launch application"

Comment 1

[(inactive after 6/18) Alive Kuo [:alive]]

Makes sense, but how to define the app cannot be launched?

Comment 2

[Wayne Chang [:wchang]]

For the time being, partner is only concerned about the camera and video apps.

Sharaf,

Can you upload your patches and where possible some screenshots for review?

Thanks

Comment 3

[Sharaf]

Alive,

I was thinking about 2 options:

1) Add a new manifest entry so battery hungry application can mention that, and system may choose not to launch such apps.

2) Have a list of application (probably build time configurable) and when those apps are launched check the battery status.

Please comment on these approaches.

I have a PoC patch for second case ready. (due to the complexities involved in adding a new manifest entry i chose option 2 :-) )

Comment 4

[(inactive after 6/18) Alive Kuo [:alive]]

(In reply to Sharaf from comment #3)
> Alive,
> 
> I was thinking about 2 options:
> 
> 1) Add a new manifest entry so battery hungry application can mention that,
> and system may choose not to launch such apps.

This involves API change so you need to post an article to dev-webapi for further discussion.
Usually we CANNOT add anything we want into manifest.

> 
> 2) Have a list of application (probably build time configurable) and when
> those apps are launched check the battery status.

Makes more sense.

> 
> Please comment on these approaches.
> 
> I have a PoC patch for second case ready. (due to the complexities involved
> in adding a new manifest entry i chose option 2 :-) )

Comment 5

[Sharaf]

Attachment: System app low battery management

Proposed patch based on comment #3 option 2.

With this, application wont be launched from Homescreen as well as as an activity.


I am not sure about the UX person who can please look in to this. Alive, can you please help me in here?

Comment 6

[(inactive after 6/18) Alive Kuo [:alive]]

Comment on attachment 8376049 [details] [diff] [review]
System app low battery management

Review of attachment 8376049 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

f- for polluting app window factory. There's no reason for it to care battery.
The only 'reasonable' implementation is let battery_manager to block the launchapp event.
Another reason is no testing. Block application to be launched may be severe if we don't test it carefully.

BTW I am really concerned about this feature. Do we really need it? What's the real power consumption if we launch the app?
Do we do this only because of android has that?

Comment 7

[Sharaf]

Okey I will modify it.
Do you expect the battery manager to listen for app launch event and block it if battery condition is not met? In that case webapp events including application ready event and manifest loading code need to be added in battery manager? 

Or else how about moving the battery related code to battery manager and querying it during app launch events from window factory?

Comment 8

[Stephany Wilkes]

This sounds like a pretty substantial new feature. Flagging Peter to see if this is destined for a backlog. Peter, I realize this is more System than Sys FE, but I'm curious as to how the user is to understand why an app isn't launching (i.e. that it's because of the battery and not something else), and how they know to fix it. We could tell the user to charge their phone, but what's the minimum battery required for each app. Do we have any technical requirements/rules like this?

Comment 9

[(inactive after 6/18) Alive Kuo [:alive]]

Second to comment 8, we need technical detail to know the battery concern of launching an app.

(In reply to Sharaf from comment #7)
> Okey I will modify it.
> Do you expect the battery manager to listen for app launch event and block
> it if battery condition is not met? In that case webapp events including
> application ready event and manifest loading code need to be added in
> battery manager? 
> 
> Or else how about moving the battery related code to battery manager and
> querying it during app launch events from window factory?

This sounds good.

Comment 10

[Sharaf]

Attachment: System app low battery management

Patch modified based on comment #6 and comment #9

Comment 11

[(inactive after 6/18) Alive Kuo [:alive]]

Comment on attachment 8376998 [details] [diff] [review]
System app low battery management

Review of attachment 8376998 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

f- for polluting settings db.

Forget anything about gaiamobile.org, it's not persistent.

BTW, I won't r+ any hack like this until we have technical discussion for how to know comment 8 or project decision saying: "hey we must accept this hack anyway".

Sorry!

Comment 12

[Wayne Chang [:wchang]]

Let's wait for pdol's (or the right product owner?) comment on if this is something we'll include into our project.

Thanks Alive.

(In reply to Alive Kuo [:alive][NEEDINFO!][:艾莉芙] from comment #11)

> 
> BTW, I won't r+ any hack like this until we have technical discussion for
> how to know comment 8 or project decision saying: "hey we must accept this
> hack anyway".
> 
> Sorry!

Comment 13

[Peter Dolanjski [:pdol]]

(In reply to Stephany Wilkes from comment #8)
> This sounds like a pretty substantial new feature. Flagging Peter to see if
> this is destined for a backlog. Peter, I realize this is more System than
> Sys FE, but I'm curious as to how the user is to understand why an app isn't
> launching (i.e. that it's because of the battery and not something else),
> and how they know to fix it. We could tell the user to charge their phone,
> but what's the minimum battery required for each app. Do we have any
> technical requirements/rules like this?

I am not keen to add this to the roadmap for a few reasons:
1) I don't think we should prevent the user from using an app just because that app may drain the remaining battery somewhat faster than other apps.  If the user really wants to take a few camera photos with the remaining battery, why stop them?
2) Determining which apps we should do this for is not easy, particularly for third party apps.

Sharaf, I would recommend that if you would like this in Madai, that it be added to your product specific implementation for now. 
If you have customer or support feedback highlighting why you feel it is necessary to prevent the camera from being launched during low battery scenarios, I would love to look at it for future consideration.

Comment 14

[BMO Automation]

Firefox OS is not being worked on